Panopticon
by DarkAngelTorchic
Summary: Ten years in post-Galactic Sinnoh, two trainers leave Twinleaf Town to start a journey and then split up to conquer the world. Meet Quinn Pointer, novice trainer. She has a magmar deemed too ugly to be a contest star by her mother, a trainer ID where she looks like a curly-haired monster with a lazy eye and a love of free food. It's about to get crazy.
1. Prologue: Every new beginning

Sunyshore was the city that never slept.

The bright lights of the city could be seen from miles away, leading tired trainers to food and beds. These lights had gotten significantly brighter over the last ten years, as more and more buildings popped up in the city. The economy of Sunyshore had soared and so had the population. While generally, this was a good thing (especially considering there were several cities in the region that were in the beginning stages of failing), it did bring a new set of negatives along with it- problems that Sunyshore hadn't had to face before the war.

She could see some of those problems hanging out just ahead of her (really, it was her fault for leaving most of her things- including a house key- with _him)_. They hadn't spotted her yet, but there was no doubt that they would soon, and it wouldn't be good when they did. They were undoubtedly hanging out by the ID scanner and "welcome to Sunyshore" sign to catch unaware trainers trying not to fall asleep or desperately lost tourists, smirking at each other with cigarettes on their lips and cheap beer cans in their hands. Right outside the city was the only place they could really get away with such behavior, after all- once you were inside the city gates, there were eyes on you at all times.

The brunette was almost unidentifiable in the dark, especially in a black leather motorcycle jacket and black jeans. In fact, in all black, she too almost looked like some sort of delinquent sneaking around in the dark outside of the city limits. Really, she wasn't trying to get into trouble- it was just so much more convenient to be traveling at this hour, when all the newbies were asleep in their beds (though there weren't really that many newbies around Sunyshore to begin with) and she didn't have to deal with poor, misinformed kids asking her to battle.

"Hey baby, why don't you come over here?" And finally, she had caught their attention. One hand clutched her trainer ID, the laminated plastic cutting into her hand. There was no way to avoid the men, as the ID scanners were the only means of getting the city gates open after ten. Her right hand clutched a pokéball at her belt. It didn't matter whose it was, as any of her team was more than capable of taking care of a bunch of half-drunk nitwits. She really doubted she would need them anyways, as these idiots really didn't look capable of hurting even the tiniest wurmple, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Oh hell yeah, come have some fun with us, babe," another one called out. She rolled her eyes and tightened her grip on her ID. She was almost to the ID scanner, which meant she was almost inside the city limits where she could grab a room in one of the many hotels off the beach, since the Pokemon Center had closed much earlier. Hopefully she could just get through with no incident.

"Why aren't you answering us?" the first gruff voice asked persistently. "What, you too good for us?"

"Don't push it," she responded curtly, finally reaching the sought-after ID scanner and swiping her card through.

"Oooh, a trainer. Whaddaya got, a nice pikachu, maybe a buneary?" he snickered, grabbing her wrist. Oh yes, this one was most persistent.

She opened her mouth to try and give the guy fair warning, but she was stopped before she could begin. "I'd let her go right now if I were you," a third male voice cut in coldly. "And I mean right now."

The hand on her wrist snapped away quickly. "Sorry man, I didn't realize she was with you."

She glared first at the man who had grabbed her, and then at the young man who had interrupted, his deep blue eyes appearing almost black in the dark. "I'm sorry, did you think I needed help?" she asked, irate.

A light passed over her face and the first man's eyes widened. "Oh shit… Shit, I'm sorry. I wouldn't have… I mean, if I knew you were _you-"_

"Forget about it," she said shortly.

"Come on, the gate's going to lock again in a minute," the blue-eyed young man said, grabbing the handle and holding it open for her. "Let's just go."

She followed him through the gate and into Sunyshore, a sour look still on her face. "I don't need you fighting my battles for me, got it?" she asked pointedly as they began to walk towards the tourist area by the beach, where most hotels in Sunyshore were located.

"Got it," he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Geez, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd get so pissed."

"Just remember who's in charge here," she said. "Now come on. It's late."

* * *

The next morning was rainy.

Far away, in Twinleaf Town, the rain had begun very suddenly, combining with the unusual summer heat to make for what her mother referred to as a _triple _H kind of day: hot, humid and hazy.

The cozy little town was nearly empty, though even on the nicest days, Twinleaf wasn't nearly as busy as it once had been. Of course, the small southwestern town had never been what one would consider _bustling_, but after the great Frontier Brain and his family had left permanently for an apartment closer to the Battle Frontier and their neighbors had shortly followed suit, the town had seemed to quiet down even more. Not even the new inhabitants of the homes left behind, each with small children, could liven up Twinleaf.

A tall, willowy girl with blonde frizzy hair charged out the door of a small house with a red door. Her eyes quickly widened as she realized how hard the rain was coming down. She swore to herself as she turned around to go back inside. "Shit… I swear, it was just sunny out five minutes ago. Marky, don't go- no, shit, Marky, get back in your pokéball!"

He hadn't gotten the memo. "Marky, get back in here, you're gonna get- oh you're already wet." A beat. "Don't get mad at _me_. I tried to tell you but you didn't listen."

That was the first attempt.

* * *

The second attempt went a little something like this:

It is bright and sunny out. Most of the puddles from yesterday's rain have already dried up. An impatient young man with blue-black hair and a seemingly permanent frown stands outside tapping his foot, having already knocked three times. "Quinn, come on!"

After a few minutes, the front door opens to reveal an extremely annoyed magmar. The look on his face tells the young man all he needs to know. "She's not ready, is she?" he asks, eyebrow cocked.

The magmar shakes his head and moves to let the young man through the doorway.

The young man steps into the living room, where the contents of a large backpack are spilled out across the hardwood floor. A young woman sits surrounded by the piles of items, her sunshine-colored ringlets out of control. She looks up at the young man with a pout, clearly dismayed at his expression. Her big brown eyes are like those of a scolded growlithe. "I was ready to go yesterday."

Thus begins the journey of Quinn Petunia Pointer.

* * *

**Author's Note (5/12/13): **Hello all, and welcome to the humble prologue of my newest story! Please keep in mind if you've read my other multi-chapter stories (The City and The Ghost and Set Yourself On Fire) that this IS the same universe inhabited by those characters, though 10 years after the events of Set Yourself On Fire (though there will be no spoilers for the end of the story). The characters of those stories may briefly pop up, but this is not another story in that series and you definitely do not need to read them before you read this one- just know that this is not the Sinnoh of the games. :)

I will also be accepting a limited number of OC's, as my preference for this story is to not use a ton of canon characters. If you are interested in submitting an OC, please PM me and I will send you the form, as I do not want submissions in the reviews (and I would ideally like to give you a few extra details about the story).

I am so excited for this story- it has been a long time since I first started plotting it, so it's really exciting for me to finally get to write it.

Thank you, as always, to my wonderful beta **Noteleks**, and a special thank you to you readers! You are so greatly appreciated, and I would love to know what you think thus far.

I will be striving hard to update this story every Sunday. Chapter 1 is already done and has been sent to my beta, so you'll definitely be getting an update soon.

See you next week!  
~DAT


	2. The future's just a few heartbeats away

Really, he _should _be taking it as a compliment.

When Professor Rowan had announced that, for the first time in years, he was taking a vacation, the world renowned professor of pokemon evolution had told him that it was in part because he "finally have an assistant I can trust to run things without me, unlike that Lucas kid, always chasing after that girl from Twinleaf". Of course, Brogan did feel that twinge of pride, but he also felt a twinge of something else that he recognized as anxiety, and maybe also a twinge of fear.

When Brogan was younger, he had made special trips to New Bark Town all the time to sit and talk with Professor Paul Elm, the Johto region's top scholar who specialized in breeding patterns. Professor Elm had been the one to inspire Brogan to delve deeper into the world of academia instead of going on to be a trainer as most of his peers had done. So even though New Bark Town wasn't necessarily a quick trip from Violet City, where Brogan had spent the largest chunk of his childhood, it was worth it to bike down from Violet to spend a few hours talking to him. One day, Professor Elm had told Brogan about some of the pokemon he had given to trainers over the years and what some of those trainers had done. Brogan was fascinated- he had no idea that Professor Elm had given Lyra, the girl who had defeated Team Rocket, her cyndaquil! He also hadn't known that Professor Elm had once had a totodile, but he didn't anymore, thanks to a "belligerent red-haired young man" who had stolen the water-type.

As an eleven-year-old, Brogan was horrified to hear the story. When his peers returned home to Violet City for short visits, they regaled classmates with stories about awesome gym badges and awesome new trainer friends and awesome new pokemon caught. Nobody he knew had ever been robbed or hurt. The fact that there were apparently people who stole pokemon out there right in his own backyard only served to solidify the fact that he wanted to be a researcher, not a trainer.

Now, years later, as Brogan sat at Professor Rowan's nice mahogany desk in his cramped lab, this particular story of Professor Elm's was running through his head, disabling Brogan from continuing his work on pokemon that evolved by learning certain moves. It was a report that he had promised Professor Rowan would be done by the time the old man returned from his Seafoam Island vacation, but it was hard to do so when all he could think about was the fact that Professor Rowan had never prepared him for what to do if someone tried to rob him.

Not that Brogan was completely without resources, though. If anything bad_was_to happen, he did have Hocus with him, the alakazam that he had considered a companion since the age of fourteen. However, Hocus was just that- a companion. Brogan had never formally trained him, something Hocus had always been totally okay with (he was kind of lazy anyways). Now, as he sat alone in the lab, not training Hocus was fast becoming one of Brogan's regrets (along with telling Professor Rowan that he would be fine alone if he so wanted to go on vacation)._What if _something was to happen?

The door to the laboratory opened with a swift push and Brogan looked up in alarm. A tall, thin girl with out-of-control curly blonde hair and a bright, expectant smile stood at the door next to a slightly shorter, but equally lanky young man with blue-black hair and obvious impatience written all over his face. Brogan pushed a lock of his hair out of his face before greeting them. "Hi, can I help you?" he asked hesitantly.

"Well, you're clearly not Professor Rowan," the boy said, pursing his lips.

"Duh, Colin," the girl said, rolling her eyes. "He obviously works for the professor. Don't be dumb." She turned to Brogan with a smile. "Sorry, hi! We were supposed to come get a pokedex from Professor Rowan a few days ago, but it's been raining like crazy, so we put off the starts of our journeys, but now we're starting them and-"

"Q, you're rambling," the boy (Colin) cut her off. "My name is Colin Barry, my father requested a pokedex from Professor Rowan." The girl just smiled at Brogan again. Colin nudged her. "Introduce yourself, tell him why you're here."

"Oh! Sorry!" she apologized. "I'm Quinn Pointer, I just finished up the school year at the academy in Jubilife. My teacher said she was going to contact Professor Rowan about getting me a pokedex because I got top marks in my training classes."

"Right," Brogan said, nodding along, even though Professor Rowan's instructions on giving out pokedexes were now a vague memory. He did recall stating that he was expecting a couple trainers, though when they hadn't shown, Brogan had expected that they just had decided not to go on their journeys after all. Though really, Brogan hadn't left the lab in days (even going as far as to sleep on the couch in the small apartment upstairs that Lucas had once inhabited instead of going home) so he had no idea it had even been raining. "Let me, uh, grab those for you."

"Sure!" Quinn chirped. "Thanks so much!"

"Tone it down a bit, Q," Brogan heard Colin say as he went into the back room where Professor Rowan kept technology. He grabbed two basic pokedexes off of the shelf and went back in the room, being careful not to stay gone for too long so that they wouldn't have a chance to take anything while his back was turned (even though they looked like well-mannered kids, he really didn't know them well enough to trust them).

Brogan handed one to Colin, who took immediately to examining it for any defects, and the other to Quinn, whose eyes lit up. "Thank you so much!" she said.

"Go ahead and turn them on," Brogan said. "Make sure there's nothing wrong with them. Sometimes the company that manufactures them just sends us bad merch, ya know?"

"I… know," Colin said primly. He flipped the 'on' switch on his pokedex, watching out of the corner of his eye as Quinn did the same.

Brogan watched the two screens light up, clearly both working well. "Hey, mine's in another language…" Quinn said, her smile temporarily fading.

"Oh, no probs, just gotta change a setting. Can I see it?" Brogan asked. The blonde handed her pokedex over and watched as Brogan hit a few buttons to go into the settings menu.

"What was your name again?" Colin asked. "I don't believe you ever told us."

"Oh, my bad. I'm Brogan, Professor Rowan's assistant," he said, looking up from Quinn's pokedex for a quick second.

"You have an accent," Colin pointed out. "You must not be from Sinnoh."

"I'm originally from Unova, but we moved around all over when I was a kid… But I grew up during the Galactic conflict, so we were always just trying to find somewhere peaceful to settle, ya know?" Brogan asked. He handed Quinn's pokedex over to the blonde girl. "There ya go. Set back to English for ya."

"Where did you end up settling?" Quinn asked, clearly more interested in his story than her pokedex.

"We lived in Johto the longest. Violet City. Johto is pretty chill," Brogan said evenly. "We also spent some time in Kanto, since it's been awhile since their whole thing with Team Rocket."

"Why did you come to Sinnoh?" Quinn inquired.

"I wanted to work with Professor Rowan, study evolution, that kind of thing," Brogan said evenly. "When I lived in Johto, they were just figuring out the dynamics of breeding and baby pokemon and it interested me and Professor Elm recommended I work with Prof Rowan here."

"Prof…" Colin muttered under his breath. Out of the corner of his eye, Brogan saw Quinn give Colin a warning kick to the shin.

"That's really awesome!" Quinn said. "Have you always wanted to be a researcher?"

"Quinn, come on," Colin groaned.

"You're the one who started asking questions," the blonde reminded him.

"Sorry, I don't mean to keep you guys…" Brogan said. It was pretty obvious that a) Colin did not like him (which Brogan cared not at all about) and b) Colin was ready to l-e-a-v-e.

"No, go ahead!" Quinn insisted. "Please? I think you're very interesting."

"Thanks… I think," Brogan said awkwardly. "Um, ya, I always kinda knew that I wanted to research instead of being a trainer. I mean, you know, when you hit 10, 11, 12 and everyone you know is going out on these awesome journeys, ya kinda doubt your choice, but I've always been pretty glad that I stuck with it." He cleared his throat. "Do you guys need, like, pokemon to start out with? I don't remember if Rowan told me to give you a pokemon or not…"

"We have pokemon. Really swell pokemon, thanks," Colin said smugly. "Quinn, tell him."

Quinn nodded vigorously. "We do have pokemon. I have a magmar that my mom gave me. Well, she didn't really give him to me, but he's just been sitting around the house with nothing to do. One of my mom's friends gave him to her to use in contests but she, uh, doesn't think Marky is contest material, so I decided to take him with me instead!"

Colin sighed. "There really is never a short answer with you, is there?"

Quinn glared at the dark-haired boy. "Don't be an asshole your whole life, Colin."

Colin chuckled. "Always so eloquent, Q."

"What kind of pokemon do you have?" Brogan asked politely. Not like he really cared, but Brogan always felt uncomfortable with friends bantering in front of him, having conversations that he couldn't really join in.

"Oh! Right!" Colin said, as if he had forgotten that Brogan was even there. "I have a cranidos that my father got me. He bred his rampardos with his rhyperior and Crag is the end result."

"Those are some hardcore pokemon," Brogan said, mildly impressed. "But your dad is Grayson Barry, so I'm not surprised."

"First ever rock-type trainer in the Elite Four," Colin said proudly. "Though I'm going to beat him one day and then become Champion, of course."

Quinn smiled good-naturedly, though it was obvious by the look on her face that she had heard Colin's _I'm going to be a Champion _spiel at least a hundred times before. "Why are you leaving so late for a journey if you plan on being the Champion then?" Brogan asked. "I mean, most trainers with those aspirations leave when they're ten or eleven. You two are what, fifteen?"

"I'm fourteen," Quinn said quickly, jumping in first to try and deter any sarcastic comments Colin might be tempted to make. "And Colin is fifteen. He was waiting for me to leave. My mom is in contests and so she hasn't been around much for awhile for me or my brother. My brother is eleven and he just left this year on his journey, and since he's gone, I figured it was time for me to go traveling as well."

"I couldn't just leave her in Twinleaf alone so… I just waited," Colin said, a faint redness rising to his cheeks.

"That's very nice," Brogan said awkwardly. He really hadn't expected such a candid response from the dark-haired boy, but whatever. "Is there anything else I can do for you guys before you head out?"

"Oh no!" Quinn said. "You've done so much already. Thank you so much, Brogan."

"Do you have pokèballs, potions, that kind of stuff?" Brogan asked. "Or at least enough stuff to keep ya going until you hit Jubilife?"

"We're fine, thank you," Colin said primly. "Thank you for the pokedex. It's appreciated."

"You have Crosstransceivers, right?" Brogan asked. "Let me give you my number, just in case you need anything."

Quinn took the Crosstransceiver out of her bag and handed it to Brogan. "Are you planning on being a professor like Professor Rowan one day? Because you'll be really good at it."

"Thanks," Brogan said with a smile, handing the Crosstransceiver back to Quinn after putting in his number. Colin handed his own Crosstransceiver over to Brogan then (of course, the newest make and model, but Brogan had learned to expect that from this kid pretty quickly) and Brogan entered in his number quickly. "Okay you two so… go out in the world, make things happen and… kick ass?" He knew the professor would usually say something inspirational at this point, but Brogan wasn't good at that sort of thing.

Quinn giggled as she turned to head out the door. "I hope we see you soon, Brogan! Bye!"

"Thank you again," Colin said politely. He held the door open for Quinn and within seconds, the two of them were gone.

* * *

The heavy oak door closed behind the two novice trainers and Quinn at once turned to her best friend with a bright smile on her face. "So Jubilife is first, right? Let's go!" she chirped. She had already began to wander off towards route 202 before noticing that Colin was still standing in front of the lab awkwardly. "What are you waiting for, slowpoke? Arceus, Colin!"

"So, uh…" Colin began. "About that…"

"About _what_, Colin?" Quinn asked, narrowing her eyes.

"I was thinking, uh…"

"Spit it out."

"Well, you know Red and Blue, right? And uh, Lyra and Ethan? They were friends, right? Great friends, best friends, friends for years, and they didn't travel together-"

"Are you saying you don't want to travel together?" Quinn asked, stunned.

"Quinn-" the dark-haired boy sputtered.

"No, don't you _Quinn _me. Why did you wait for me then? If you weren't planning on traveling with me, you could've left any time you damn well pleased." The curly-haired young girl crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

"Because I still want to do this with you!" Colin exclaimed. "You know, sharing the experience and whatnot, even if we're not together day in and day out. It's just, you know, in every hero story, the hero always has a rival who spurs him to do better. Red had Blue-"

"This is not some damn hero story!" Quinn said, her mouth agape. "I talked myself into doing this journey because I thought it would be the two of us- me and my best friend! Instead you're just going to slot me into some ridiculous archetype in your hypothetical hero story-"

"You're getting all academia on me, Quinn," Colin said, raising his eyebrows.

"I do not give a damn," she said, pursing her lips. "You could've told me you didn't want to travel together from the very get-go, you know. I would've at least liked some preparation for going on a journey all on my own, instead of with my best friend."

"If you're so against going alone, why don't you see if Kale wants to meet up with you somewhere?" Colin suggested.

"Because I'm sure he doesn't want to go back to his big sister taking care of him all the time," Quinn retorted. "And last I talked to him, he already had his first two badges. It would be unfair to make him wait around while I play catch up."

Colin frowned. "Listen, Quinn, I'm sorry. I don't want us to start our journeys angry at each other-"

"Even though you actually have no reason to be angry with me and I have every reason to be angry with you," Quinn interrupted.

"Okay, whatever," Colin said with a sigh. "I don't like it when you're angry with me. Listen, how about we head to Jubilife together and _then _we can take off and do whatever we want to do. I know I want to head to Oreburgh right away, but I'm sure you'll want to hang around Jubilife. They're almost always having some sort of festival or tournament to try and get people to go there-"

"C, you're rambling," she said, mimicking his words from earlier. "And thanks but no thanks. I don't need your pity accompaniment. If you want to go, then go."

"I don't want to go if it means you're mad at me," Colin said, a serious look coming across his face.

"I absolve you," Quinn sighed. "I'm not mad. Just… disappointed, I guess. Go ahead and go to Oreburgh. Just train up, because now you've given the rival in your hero story some major incentive to beat you once we run into each other out there and challenge one another in a ridiculous, overdone battle scene."

Colin rolled his eyes and pulled his curly-haired friend into a hug. "You're ridiculous, Q."

"Mmhmm, get going before I change my mind about being mad at you," she said, raising her eyebrows at him.

"Yes ma'am!" he said in mock salute and with that, he took off running for route 202.

"I don't even know how he can run in those skinny jeans," she chuckled to herself. "Well, I guess it's time for this journey to really kick off now… By myself."

* * *

Without Colin to talk to, Quinn noticed several minuscule details in her first few minutes of traveling alone that she had been able to completely ignore when she was with Colin. The belt that held her Poke Balls, only one of them occupied, was strangely heavy and hit her thighs whenever she stepped forwards. The summer humidity was causing several tendrils of curly yellow hair to stick to her neck with sweat, something that even throwing her voluminous hair into a ponytail could not fix.

Most prevalent of these thoughts, though, was that the lack of human voices and conversations was disturbing her and she was beginning to feel slightly insane. Sure, starly chirped from the treetops and bidoof chattered amongst themselves, occasionally making squealing noises that only one another could understand, but there was apparently no other trainers out there. She was beginning to wish she had waited to make the journey to Jubilife until the morning, when others surely would've wanted to be out in the sunshine training. However, as much as she hated to admit it, Quinn had secretly hoped that she would run into Colin out there in the wilderness and the two miserable, sticky, inexperienced trainers would decide to travel together despite what Colin had said earlier. However, somehow his brief headstart into solitary training had done wonders into helping him get to Jubilife early, as Quinn hadn't seen a trace of him. Apparently, even the skinny jeans could not slow him down (though surely, he was regretting his fashion choices with the humidity).

Sighing, Quinn grabbed the one occupied ball on her belt and released the pokemon with gusto, smiling as a magmar took form in front of her. Marky, as he'd been named by one of her mother's contest friends after a teenage rapper/heartthrob turned serious actor of yesteryear, was like a teenager himself, all crossed arms and narrowed eyes. Regardless of how clearly irate he was, Quinn sure was glad to see him. "Well, Marky, I guess you're my only friend out here," she said with a small smile. "Are you ready for a super awesome journey?"

Marky looked at her blankly. "Mar."

"I'm going to take that as a yes," Quinn said with a shrug. She pretended she didn't see him shake his head.

"Well, to Jubilife we go!" Quinn said cheerily. She began to lead the way through route 202, through the grass and weeds, kicking up dirt behind her.

"This is fun, isn't it, Marky?" she asked without looking behind her. "Oh yes, you and I, we are going to have tons of fun! And we don't need Colin, not at all! _We _are going to be best friends now, right? To hell with Colin's hero story! This is _our _story and one day, people will remember Quinn and Marky just like they do Red and Pikachu!"

"Mag! Magmar!" Marky shouted angrily behind her.

Quinn's jaw dropped indignantly, though she still continued to march forward. "How dare you, Marky! That really hurt my feelings!"

Quinn's feelings, however, were the least of her worries when a fireball went whizzing by her head, narrowly missing her frizzy sunshine-colored ponytail. "Did you just try to _attack me?!_?" she squawked , finally whirling around.

What she was faced with wasn't a magmar hellbent on hurting her, like she had feared (for a split second). No, what she had turned around to find was Marky engaged in battle with… what looked like a small kitten an eighth of his size.

Quinn blinked. "Really, guy? A shinx?"

The shinx, so young that it didn't even have any electric-type moves to hope to fight Marky with, mewled unhappily as it dodged a projectile of fire from the magmar. It bounded up to Quinn and placed its paw on her ankle, looking up at her with wide eyes.

Quinn's own eyes widened in response. "Oh my Arceus, my heart just melted." She picked up the small kitten pokemon and grinned at it. "I think I love you."

Another fireball flew past Quinn's head, hitting a small patch of particularly dry grass, which went up in a blaze. Quinn scowled as she put the shinx down and began to pile dirt on the small fire. Within about a minute of Quinn attending to it, the fire died down, leaving an angry yellow-haired fourteen year old girl and an irate magmar. "Marky, that was not cool. _Not cool._"

Marky grunted in response. The shinx mewled again and Quinn melted all over again. "Okay, I am going to catch you, Shinx. Is that cool?"

The shinx looked hesitantly from the smiling girl towering over it to the angry magmar that had begun attacking it for no good reason. However, the girl's adoration was enough to convince it to nod its head vigorously. "Shinx!" it trilled.

"Okay!" she said, grabbing one of the empty pokèballs off her belt. The shinx didn't even try to resist capture and the pokéball stopped shaking with a _click._Quinn picked up the pokéball and held it up to Marky. "You see this, sir? This shinx is now your teammate, which means you cannot attempt to murder it. It's our friend. It's part of our_team_. You got that?"

Marky snorted and…_did he roll his eyes at her?_

Quinn rolled her eyes in return in an exaggerated manner. "Well right back at ya, pal!" She pushed the button on the shinx's pokéball and released the little darling. Her next action was to grab her pokédex in order to find out more about the creature. In recent years, significant advances had been made to the Pokedex, allowing for trainers to find out information on the gender and level of their newly caught pokemon. It certainly made Quinn glad she had waited so long to be a trainer, as she probably would've been a mess without technology to help her with those sorts of things.

"Shinx, male, level 4," the Pokedex said in its automated voice.

"Another boy, eh?" she said with a wry smile. "So what do I name you? Nothing to do with electricity… That's too cliché, right?" she asked him.

The shinx nodded. "Shinx."

"Hmm, what else do you have going for you?" she asked out loud. "Well, you are cute as a button… But Button strikes me as a doggy kind of name, and you sir, are a kitten." She continued to think. "What was that movie that came out awhile back where the guy's name was Button? I think it was his last name, right?"

Both the shinx and Marky looked at her like she had gone insane. "You guys are useless when it comes to pop culture. What else did you expect me to do when babysitting? Homework?" she scoffed. "But anyways, I think his name was Benjamin. That's kind of cute… and kind of classy. I like it!"

She crouched down and looked the shinx in the eye. "What do you think about the name Benjamin, Shinx?"

"Shinx," he said. His tone was neutral, not really excited, but not displeased. It was the vocal pokemon equivalent of a shrug.

"Well, since you don't actively hate it, we'll stick with that for now, and we can bring this up again if we decide we hate it later."

"Shinx," Benjamin said with a nod.

"What do you say we set up camp, gentlemen?" she asked the chipper shinx and grumpy magmar. "We can hit up Jubilife in the morning."

"Mar," the magmar said.

"I'm not really sure what that means…" Quinn said hesitantly. "Can you accompany that with like, a hand gesture or some nodding or something?"

"Maaar," he said, enunciating his vocals and nodding slowly, almost as if he was mocking her.

"Whatever," Quinn said with a shrug. "Mar it is."

And mar it was.

* * *

**Author's Note (5/15/13): **Hello all! Welcome to the first REAL chapter of _Panopticon!_ I figured since technically prologues are not real chapters and also they're extremely short, I would post today instead of waiting until Sunday. I may or may not have also been too excited to wait until Sunday.

Regarding OC's: Chapter 2 will be posted on Sunday, May 26th. That's your deadline for OC's, guys. If you haven't done one and you'd still like to, please feel free to PM me and I'd be happy to send you the form. To those of you who have already sent them in, I promise you won't be getting a decision until at least then (if not a couple days after). However, you should be receiving a message from me within the next couple days with comments and/or things I'd like you to change before I make a decision one way or the other. I started doing these messages already but likely will not finish for a few days.

Thank you SO MUCH for reading thus far! The response to the prologue was totally overwhelming (in a good way)!

As always, thanks to my amazing beta and friend, **Noteleks**!

Good luck in this last stretch, fellow students, and have a good end of the school year. Make sure to celebrate lots. ;) I'll see you next Sunday!

~DAT


	3. I'm not scared, but this is happening

She wasn't sure if it was the hand on her shoulder shaking her that woke her up, the detached voice that said "routine security check, Panopticon agent 012" or the low, angry growling from the general vicinity that brought Quinn to consciousness but one thing was for sure- it was definitely too early for her to be awake. The curly-haired novice trainer forced her eyes open to see a ginger-haired young man in his late-twenties standing in front of her with his arms crossed and his mouth in an unamused line. He was indeed wearing the typical uniform of the Panopticon field operatives; black cargo pants and a black long-sleeved shirt with the gray Panopticon emblem over the chest. On the right side, the numbers "012" were displayed.

On his left side was a particularly muscular machoke, who looked just as detached as his trainer, eyeing Quinn suspiciously. On his right, a girl with a platinum blonde French braid over one shoulder and bangs covering one cyan eye looked extremely nervous and at her feet was a glaring Benjamin, growing angrily at the intruders (but wisely choosing to focus his anger on the trainer _without _a hulking machoke). Quinn sat up and looked at the two, still a bit out of it. As she looked around the area, she found Marky a few feet away, still sleeping peacefully as if nothing was going on. Some guard he was.

"Good morning, trainer," the blonde young woman said timidly. "I am Panopticon Agent 016. We're sorry to wake you up so early, but this is a routine security check. Can we please see your trainer registration and ID?"

Still fighting off sleep, Quinn stared at the blonde blankly. "Reg…istration?"

"If you are a legitimate trainer, you should have identification with your name, age, trainer number and current pokemon team," the male said stonily. "If you have any foreign or markedly dangerous breeds, we also need to see those permits."

Quinn blinked. "I… This is my first day as a trainer."

"So I'm assuming you got this paperwork in Sandgem," he countered, his gray eyes unwavering. "We need to see this."

"I didn't," Quinn said, looking from one agent to another. She was now definitely awake and panic was starting to set in. "I was going to get it when I reached Jubilife."

Agent 012 scowled. "Do you have a pokedex?"

"Well, yes," Quinn said, puzzled.

"So you thought it important to get your pokedex, but not your trainer registration?" he said coldly.

"Silas, be nice!" the platinum-haired girl protested. Immediately after speaking, her eyes grew wide, as if she had realized she had made a big mistake.

"Agent 016, you would be wise to watch your tongue," he said, his icy look moving from Quinn to his female counterpart, who looked just as young and scared as Quinn herself. She didn't reply, but her face turned crimson. "Please excuse me for a moment. I'm going to call back to headquarters. We may need to bring you in."

"Bring me in?!" Quinn asked, horrified.

The redheaded male (Silas, Quinn guessed his name was, judging by the female agent's outburst) took out a Crosstransceiver and stepped away from the two women. "What's your name?" the girl asked Quinn.

"I'm Quinn," she said.

"Well, Quinn, I'm Abby," she said with a friendly smile. "I guess I'm not supposed to tell people that, but I've already slipped up, so I don't think it matters. I'm really sorry about my partner. He's… a little intense."

"Yeah, that's one word for it," she said with a small laugh.

"I don't think we'll have to take you in," Abby said in a low voice. "Just make sure the first thing you do in Jubilife is get your registration, okay?"

"Arceus, of course," Quinn said. "I thought I was going to make it there tonight, to be honest. My friend Colin did, and we left at about the same time, and I've done the walk from Twinleaf to Jubilife in forty-five minutes easy. But you see, Marky, my magmar, decided to attack a shinx and he lit some grass on fire and… well, you know how it goes. It set us back so we just decided to camp."

Abby giggled. "Well what an adventurous first day. Hopefully your second is a bit more… tame."

"I hope so," Quinn said with a big smile. "I just hope it doesn't start in some Panopticon cell."

"I doubt it," Abby said, playing with the ends of her hair.

Quinn stared at the girl curiously. She, of course, had seen Panopticon field operatives before (they had been around for ten years, after all, since she was very small), but they had all seemed more like Silas- cold and impersonal, a bit gruff, a slightly heightened sense of importance. Abby seemed much younger than any operative Quinn had seen before, and she was all kind sunshine, not aloof detachment. "How long have you been with Panopticon?" Quinn asked curiously. _Certainly not long enough to have the smile squashed out of her…_

"Three weeks," Abby said proudly. "It's nice to be back out in the field. It's been way too long since I've been traveling. Fitzwilliam certainly enjoys it too."

"Fitzwilliam?" Quinn asked. Certainly an interesting name.

"My jolteon," Abby explained. "My father used to work with the guy who designed Kanto's PC system and he got one from him that was given to me. He used to just be a pet, but we're required to have three pokemon on our teams, so I decided to start officially training him."

"Wow, that's so cool!" Quinn said. Her mom sometimes got pokemon as gifts too- Marky, after all, was one of those gifts. Melinda had never received anything as cool as an eevee though (or if she had, she had hidden it from her children). "Can I see him?"

"I don't think your shinx would like that very much," Abby said, gesturing to the small kitten, who was still glaring and ready to pounce at any moment.

Quinn laughed. "Benjamin, come here!" she called, gesturing to him to come onto her lap.

The shinx looked blankly at her for a moment before resuming his fiery stares in Abby's direction. "Benjamin!" Quinn called again, this time without the laugh in her voice. Benjamin didn't even look away this time. Quinn sighed. "Great, so neither of my pokemon like to listen."

"He's probably just focused on protecting you," Abby offered helpfully. "He knows we're intruders."

"You're not-" Quinn began, but then she stopped herself. Really, even though Abby was very nice, they were indeed intruders, and Benjamin was just following his instincts.

Benjamin began to growl again as heavy footsteps sounded, signifying the return of Silas. Quinn felt the flutter of panic return to her stomach. Despite Abby's confidence that she wouldn't be hauled off to a security cell, _what if she was_? What would her mother say if Quinn called her to come pick her up? Would she even come?

"Consider this a warning," Silas said briskly as he handed her a yellow sheet of paper. "I was advised to give you a write-up instead of taking you in, but we still need information on you and we'll be doing a follow-up visit with you in the next week."

Quinn stared at the yellow paper, her fear dissolving. It was simple enough. "Do you have a pen?" she asked with a nervous smile.

"Arceus, you left on a journey and didn't even bring a writing utensil?" Silas asked incredulously. He dug into the pockets of his black cargos and fished out a simple ink pen and handed it to Quinn. She grabbed her pokedex from her bag to use as a hard surface to write on and began filling the form out.

_Name. _That was easy enough. Pointer, Quinn P.

_Date of birth (mm/dd)_08/01. The first of August. A few short months away. _Age._14.

_Hair._Blonde. _Eyes._Brown. _Distinctive marks. _Did her hair count? You could see it from miles away. She figured it didn't, so she instead wrote about the scar shaped like an apple by her right knee.

_Pokemon (species and levels)._Shinx, level 4. She remembered that from the day before. What level was Marky? Her mother had never said, though that didn't really matter to her mother, since she didn't train her pokemon for battling. Quinn opened the pokedex and waved it towards the sleeping form of Marky. "Magmar, male, level 16." Quinn blinked in surprise. Marky was _strong._Well, strong for an amateur like Quinn. Certainly strong enough to beat the first gym. That was just awesome.

The curly-haired blonde smiled widely as she finished filling out the form by copying down her Crosstransceiver number and signing and dating the notice. She handed it to Silas, who glanced down at it to make sure that she had filled it out correctly. "Thank you. Someone in the Panopticon administration will be contacting you within the next week to let you know when someone will be coming. In the meantime, get your identification and registration first thing when you get to Jubilife and scan your ID at the readers in the Pokemon Center. You can also use your ID to get through the city limits after 10PM."

"Thanks," Quinn said awkwardly.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Pointer," Silas said. He grabbed a pokeball off of his belt and recalled the hulking machoke, who had done little more than blink since arriving. She supposed he was just there for the intimidation factor (which was valid, considering Quinn would never even think of acting out while that hulking beast was around). In his place, Silas called out a staraptor, who looked at Quinn with utter disinterest. Behind him, Abby offered Quinn a small smile as she too called out a large staraptor. The two got on the large birds and began to fly north, the direction of Jubilife, presumably to the Panopticon office to file Quinn's paperwork.

Quinn laid back down, but the comfort of the sleeping bag was lost on her now. She was definitely wide awake. Benjamin trotted up from where he had planted himself at her feet and curled up next to her stomach. He purred and rubbed his head against her abdomen. Quinn's face broke into a smile. "Awww…" she cooed. Benjamin smiled up at her and cooed back at her.

And just as she had finally began to get comfortable, accompanied by her lovable shinx kitten, she felt a jolt of pain in her abdomen. After the initial shock of the pain wore off, it began to burn. "Shit!" Quinn swore as she sat up sharply, clutching her side. Benjamin looked up at her innocently, even though he knew damn well that it was his little "love spark" that had caused his trainer pain.

Love hurt, plain and simple.

* * *

After putting some aloe vera ointment on her burn (which Quinn had packed thinking that perhaps Marky would hurt some innocent pokemon), Quinn decided to start on her way to Jubilife, even though it was especially early, and awoke the sleeping giant that was Marky. The fire pokemon gave her a glare unlike any other and Quinn decided to put him back inside of his pokeball, not really wanting to deal with his attitude. Benjamin, on the other hand, was definitely a morning person and was chipper as could be, mewing as Quinn rolled up her sleeping bag and packed it away.

Oreburgh really wasn't far from Jubilife, and despite what Colin had thought, Quinn wasn't planning on sticking around the city for very long. After all, they had _just _finished school there, where they had been attending since the age of six, when their respective families had moved to Twinleaf. Jubilife was where she had spent the majority of her time when not watching Kale, so it wasn't too particularly exciting to be going there. Really, especially with how early she was bound to arrive, she was planning on stopping and getting her trainer ID and registration (because how awful would it be if she happened to run into Silas and Abby _again _without it?) and maybe some breakfast (because a muffin sounded awesome) and then heading out. She didn't have a lot of money left on her- the majority of her savings had been given to Kale as a birthday gift so that he could start his journey- but she _did _have enough for a muffin, and hopefully she could start battling soon to earn more.

However, considering the ordeal of the early morning, Quinn was extremely relieved to start seeing the first sight of buildings. Another Panopticon employee, this one a female with a short violet bob, was unlocking the city gates as Quinn approached them. There was a bouquet of balloons in her left hand. "Good morning," she said with a small smile. Once the lights on the city gate turned green and unlocked with a steady _click_, opening to the left, the woman began tying the balloons to nearby posts and trees.

"Good morning!" Quinn said, watching her balloon-tying. This was obviously another one of Jubilife's "big events" that were really never very big. Though Jubilife was still the biggest city in western Sinnoh, both the residential and tourist population had dropped steadily after the Galactic War. The rebuilding of the city had been extraordinarily quick, as the citizens of Jubilife greatly suffered without an influx of tourists spending money in their city, but even now, all of the buildings were rebuilt from the damage done and _still _nobody wanted to live in (or visit) the city where the television station was bombed. Once the debris was cleared, the buildings began to go back up and Jubilife TV had started throwing extravagant parties and promotional events to try and lure people to the city. It had never been very successful, and after so many years of schooling in Jubilife, Quinn was as used to "Jubilife TV presents…" as she was the never-ending amount of trees in Twinleaf. "What's the event today?"

"This is actually going to be a big one," the woman said with a big smile. "The Elite Four are coming out for a meet-and-greet, they're going to have a battling tournament where you can compete for a new bicycle and lots of free food!"

Well, she had Quinn there. Trainers had to take free food anywhere they could get it. She didn't care about the tournament, nor its grand prize (Quinn hated cycling; she crashed too much), and even though maybe meeting the Elite Four could be cool, she wasn't overly excited about that either. "Sounds cool!" Quinn said. "Where and what time?"

"It will start at 10 in front of the Jubilife TV station!" she chirped. "Hope to see you there, trainer!" And with that, the woman scuttled off, presumably back to the Jubilife Panopticon office.

Quinn pulled her Crosstransceiver out of her bag and looked at the time. 8:04. Quinn still had 2 hours to kill, and she was officially there, in Jubilife. Her first step was, of course, to head to the Pokemon Center, so that her next experience with Panopticon wasn't nearly as bad. She passed several wearing the insignia on their shirts and the same familiar panic began to well up in her stomach. She really hoped none of them would stop her, though none of them looked like field operatives. And didn't Silas say they would call her before checking on her again?

It was an understatement to say that Quinn was relieved to walk through the front doors of the Jubilife Pokemon Center. Despite the festivities of the day, the Center itself was rather empty. The blonde novice trainer took note of the ID scanners that Silas had told her to use so that she could go through them after she received her ID. She headed first to the counter, where a young man with shaggy emerald hair stood. A well-toned figure was evident even under a torn orange t-shirt and a bright blue windbreaker. "Hi, can I help you?"

"I need to get my trainer registration and ID," Quinn said.

"Sure, let me grab the forms for you!" he said, as he reached under the counter where they obviously kept them. He handed two to Quinn, in addition to a blue ink pen. "Just grab me when you're done with them and we'll get the photo for your ID taken care of."

"Ok…ay," Quinn started, but he had already walked off. "Well that was super helpful."

The only difference between the forms that Quinn filled out in the lobby of the Jubilife Pokemon Center and the citation she had received from Panopticon was the Pokemon Center symbol replacing the Panopticon insignia in the top righthand corner of the piece of paper. She filled the forms out quickly and brought them back up to the counter with a pleasant smile on her face. A woman around Quinn's mother's age came to greet her. Her burgundy hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun and there were wrinkles by her eyes and mouth and Quinn couldn't help but think that her mother looked much more put-together than this woman. "Hi dear, can I help you?"

"I'm just turning in these forms for my trainer's registration," Quinn said, handing the woman the forms.

The woman scanned them over. "There are only two forms here. There should be three," she said with a frown.

"The guy that was here earlier just gave me these," Quinn said, looking around the Pokemon Center for him. His bright blue windbreaker was nowhere to be found.

"Guy? Are you sure it was a male, honey? Because we don't have any men that work at this Pokemon Center," the woman asked, clearly confused. "Maybe it was Vanessa. I told her that short haircut made her look like a boy." She dug underneath the counter and pulled out a mint green piece of paper and handed it to Quinn before the blonde girl could even protest. "No matter, though, just fill this out please."

Quinn wasn't even thinking as she filled out the third form, instead focused on the conversation that had just taken place. The person that had handed her the forms originally had _not _been Vanessa with her boyish haircut- he had been completely, 100% male. His muscular chest and arms had proved that, as they were visible even through his clothing. Not to mention that no female Quinn had ever met would wear a falling-apart orange t-shirt with a bright blue windbreaker.

She handed the form back to the older woman with a smile and decided to just forget it. Maybe he was new and the woman just hadn't met him yet. Maybe he was just a volunteer. Hell, maybe he was just a helpful stranger. He hadn't done anything but give her forms, so there was nothing to worry about. She just needed to forget about it. "Thank you, honey. Let's get that picture taken care of and then you'll have your ID."

"Thank you," Quinn said politely. The woman led her over to a large, old-looking camera and a green screen, in front of which Quinn stood.

"Okay, smile at three!" the woman instructed cheerily. "One… two…"

There was the bright blue windbreaker.

The woman took the photo as Quinn focused elsewhere, and the result once Quinn's ID was printed wasn't pretty. Quinn's hair was as wild and out of control as always, and a particularly bad cowlick right at Quinn's hairline made a piece stick out even more than the rest, making Quinn look like a wild, curly-haired monster. And while she had been unfocused, yes, the look on her face was one of confusion and it looked like she had a lazy eye.

Of course, the woman said there were no retakes.

"You look lovely, honey!" she chirped, ignoring Quinn's immense glares. "Ah, to be young again. You're so lucky you have your youth…" And by the time Quinn had received her ID card, the bright blue windbreaker was gone.

Quinn sighed, thanked the woman again and finally utilized the ID scanners at the far counter. To her, this was more exciting than receiving her ID had been, though it was possible she was a bit biased. The computer system attached to the scanner asked if she would like a reservation for the night.

She declined- she _was _getting to Oreburgh, no matter what. It was too short of a distance to not make it. A short hike through the eastern suburbia of Jublife, then the extremely short route 203 and the Oreburgh Gate- it was easy as pie. She, Colin and Kale had done the trek from Jubilife in about an hour before. She was certain that factoring in battling trainers and maybe finding another pokemon to add to her team, she was counting on maybe three hours, if that. After all, Marky was _level 16_- he could easily take down most trainer's pokemon around Oreburgh, she guessed. It would be a good training opportunity for Benjamin, though.

But first, free food.

* * *

With the addition of the Sinnohan Elite Four to an otherwise standard event, Jubilife TV had a bonafide hit on their hands. Quinn realized quickly that the meet-and-greet with the Elite Four was completely out of the question, seeing as how the renowned trainers were mobbed almost instantly. It was definitely looking like Quinn was just going to have to grab food and then leave for Oreburgh.

As Quinn headed towards the food tent, the scent of barbeque guiding her way, she caught a glimpse of Tony Barclay, the flying-type master, talking to a starstruck teenager with a starly on her shoulder. His salt-and-pepper hair stood out amongst the crowd and sunlight glinted off the hook that was at all times attached to his upper arm (the forearm and hand had been lost in some sort of accident in his youth was the story told). One could hear his gregarious laugh above all of the chatter of the trainers. Quinn didn't see how anyone could miss Tony Barclay. Even on television, he was larger than life. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not.

However, Quinn really couldn't care too much about Tony Barclay at the moment, because she was increasingly hungry and there was free food. She had forsaken the idea of a muffin because of it, and now, some kid in a green cap that was clearly too big for his head was taking forever in line, and Quinn was growing more and more impatient. It wasn't until the kid looked up to move on to the veggie tray that Quinn forced herself to quit fantasizing about punching him for keeping her and food separate that she was hit with a flash of realization. That was not just _any _stupidly oversized green cap. "Kale!"

The boy looked over at her and the hat almost fell off of his head. His brown eyes, same as hers, lit up. "Quinny!" He paused, the excitement clearly wearing off and confusion setting in. "What are you doing here? Did you come up for the meet-and-greet?"

Quinn began to build her plate- even though she was thrilled to see her brother, she was pretty damn excited for food too. "No, I'm actually passing through on my way to Oreburgh," she said, grabbing a napkin.

"For what? Are you going to do some more service hours at the mine?" he asked. "Come on, let's sit down." The two took a seat at the cheap plastic tables just outside of the tent that faced the meet-and-greet, though mostly all they could see was the swarm of trainers surrounding them.

"No, I'm going to get my first badge," Quinn said with a big smile, taking a bite of watermelon.

Kale almost spit out the bite of potato salad he was eating. "Since when?"

"Since yesterday," Quinn said. "It's boring without you at home, so I thought I would do some traveling too."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Kale asked. "You could've met up with me and my friends."

Quinn waved her hand dismissively, almost spraying her brother with the cup of lemonade it was holding. "You don't want your big sister around. You've been traveling by yourself for awhile. It'd be like Mom being around."

"You are _nothing_ like Mom," Kale said quickly, his mouth full of carrot stick. He swallowed quickly. "You totally could've come with us. You're a cool sister, and besides, you could cook, because we suck at that."

Quinn chuckled. "I appreciate it, buddy, but no thanks. I'm making it okay on my own. I've got Marky, Mom's magmar, and I caught my first pokemon yesterday! A shinx! His name is Benjamin."

"You took that thing with you?" Kale said, wrinkling his nose.

"Hey, Marky is not _that thing_!" Quinn protested. "He's my companion, and my friend!" Well, not so much friend as much as pokemon that completely disregarded her as both a trainer and person, but she still wouldn't let Kale make fun of Marky, even if he _was _her brother.

"He had a major attitude problem," Kale pointed out (which was a valid point). "Good luck trying to train _that. _I just hope your shinx is easy to raise, because you're going to need to really focus all of your energy on that magmar."

"We're going to be a great team," Quinn said proudly, a big smile on her face. Well, they would be a great team if she could get both of her pokemon to get along with her and each other.

"I'm surprised you're not with Colin," Kale said, raising an eyebrow. "Let me guess- he left you alone so he could focus on being the very best, like no one ever was."

"Something like that," Quinn admitted. "You know that's always been his dream, though."

"That's like, everyone's dream, Quinn, but I wouldn't ditch my friends because of it," Kale said, a frown on his face. "Totally not cool move on his part." It wasn't really like Quinn could argue with him, seeing as how she agreed. Her smile began to fade a bit, thinking of how she had been left in front of Professor Rowan's lab.

"Well if it isn't the Pointer siblings!" a voice behind them said. Quinn turned around, only to be faced with Grayson Barry himself, holding his own plate of food. "Mind if I sit with you two?"

"Of course not," Quinn said, scooting over on the bench to make room for her best friend's father and neighbor.

"Hi Mr. Barry," Kale said, the biggest smile on his face that Quinn had ever seen. He had always been totally in awe of their neighbor and had dedicated a fair amount of time to find excuses to go next door, in case Grayson happened to be there. He rarely was, as his Elite Four position demanded a lot of his time, but every once in awhile, Kale would get lucky during his trips to the neighbor's to borrow something.

"Hi there Kale," he said with a smile. "And hi Quinn! You haven't seen my son around, have you?"

"Not since we left Professor Rowan's lab yesterday in Sandgem," Quinn said, fighting the urge to add the words _where he ditched me_.

Grayson chuckled. "Colin has always been so impetuous. I'm sure he wanted to start training hard for Emily, since he has a large disadvantage with Crag."

"I guess he does, doesn't he?" Kale said with a small smirk.

"He'll find a way to get around it," Grayson said with a shrug. "Colin's a smart one, that's for sure. Just as you will, Quinn. You have that magmar that Ellen gave to your mother, don't you?"

"I do," Quinn said. She was wondering how Colin had a disadvantage with the outrageous attack and defense of Crag, and how she too had a disadvantage. Emily was pretty new to Oreburgh and Quinn couldn't even remember what she trained. However, she didn't want to seem stupid in front of one of the Elite Four, even if he was her best friend's father, so she decided to just play along. "But I also caught a shinx yesterday! He needs to be trained still, but I think he can beat Emily."

"Well if you're half as good at training as your mother is at contests, you have nothing to worry about," Grayson said with a warm smile. It was amazing to Quinn how much he and Colin looked alike when they smiled. Sure, Grayson's neatly kept blue-black hair was beginning to gray around the edges, but he was aging gracefully for sure. "How _is _your mother doing?"

"She's doing well," Kale cut in, his tone a bit short. He always got a bit snippy when their mother was the topic of conversation. "She and Kiera are traveling to Hoenn soon to compete in contests, if I remember correctly."

"I haven't talked to her in a while," Quinn said with a shrug.

"It's good to hear her coordinating is going well," Grayson said, his smile unwavering, though she could hear the contempt edge into his voice.

"Arceus, Grayson Barry!" a girl squealed behind them.

Grayson sighed. "Well, I guess it's time to get back to this thing. You two be good, alright? And be careful out there. You know you can always call me or Lea if you need anything."

"Thanks, Grayson," Quinn said, the smile returning to her face. Colin's father had always been so good to her and Kale, acting as a substitute father figure for them (Quinn especially) whenever he was in Twinleaf.

"And you tell Colin to call every now and then if you see him, which I'm sure you will. Even if he is impetuous, he can't stay away from you too long." He gave Quinn a pat on the shoulder as he got up to throw his plate away and deal with the throng of trainers. "See you kids."

As Grayson walked away, his fan club in tow, Kale stared after him with an amazed look on his face. "That guy is seriously the coolest. I can't believe he live next door to him."

Quinn chuckled. "Yeah, we got pretty lucky with our neighbors."

Kale stood up. "I think I'm going to try and cut through the crowd to meet the rest of the Elite Four. Wes said Ivy and Tony were talking about a friendly three-on-three. Wanna come with?"

"I think I'm going to make my way to Oreburgh, actually," Quinn said with a smile. She reached out and wrapped her little brother in a big hug, which she knew wasn't cool anymore, but he was still her little brother above all else. "Be good, and call me."

"Uh, _you _call _me_," Kale retorted, pulling away from the hug. "You didn't even tell me you were leaving home. And I want to know how your battle with Emily goes." So did Quinn, considering she couldn't remember for the life of her what Emily trained.

"Will do," Quinn said with a smile. She grabbed her bag on the bench and placed it on her back. "See ya, kiddo."

* * *

Stuffed with halfway decent (but completely free) food, Quinn's journey through the Jubilife East suburbs and then route 203 took a little longer than she thought. For one, because of the event, there were more trainers to battle than she expected, which was good for Benjamin and bad for her lack of patience. By the time she got to the Oreburgh Gate, she had a cramp in her side and she had come to the conclusion that she didn't even want to battle Emily today- for one thing, Benjamin still needed some more training before taking on a gym leader and for two, Quinn was exhausted and just wanted some ice cream and a nice comfy bed.

However, there were more trainers stuffed into the small cave that was the Oreburgh Gate than had probably ever been there at one time. Quinn, irate, pushed her way past trainers to see what was holding them up, earning herself more than a few dirty looks along the way. When she got towards the front of the pack of trainers, she saw the cause of the problem- two boys holding a battle. Quinn groaned in frustration. "Are you _kidding _me?" This battle had to take place in the already small Oreburgh Gate, right at the exit, so nobody could get out and they were prolonging _ice cream?_ Not cool.

A boy next to her in a backwards orange cap chuckled. "It'll be over soon. That blonde guy is kicking some ass. The other kid is on his last pokemon"

_The other kid _had a munchlax out, which was no match for the strange anteater blowing flames that the blonde guy was wielding. Quinn knew the pokemon was from Unova, but she couldn't remember its name to save her life. Upon watching the anteater spit a torrent of flames at its opponent, Quinn looked over at the other kid, and realized that the other kid who was getting his ass kicked was Colin, who looked completely devastated.

The blonde guy didn't even look like a trainer to Quinn- he was too perfect. His blonde hair was perfectly tousled with gel, not wild and uncontrollable like Quinn's own (or even Colin's, which looked more disheveled than Quinn had ever seen it), there was no dirt or scratches anywhere on him, his navy blazer looked ironed and pressed (what trainer had time to _iron?)_, there were no holes in his straight-leg jeans and no mud on his navy slip-on shoes. There wasn't even any food spilled on his plain white t-shirt under the blazer! As the munchlax fell, the features of his face twisted into a smirk.

Colin immediately went to the munchlax's side and whispered a few words of thanks to it before calling it back. "Come on kid, I don't have all day," the blonde guy said, tapping his foot on the ground.

"Yeah, hurry up!" called one girl from the back of the traffic jam. "With our luck, the Pokemon Center is going to be full before we get there."

Colin was scowling as he pulled out his wallet and handed the boy a few crisp bills. The blonde guy took them, the smirk never leaving his face, and placed the bills in the pocket of his blazer. He recalled the anteater without so much as a "good job" and then released another pokemon. A tall, lean and especially angry-looking gallade was released. "Teleport me back to Sunyshore, please and thank you." And with a _pop!_, he was gone, leaving Colin standing there with a befuddled look on his face.

While everyone in the background was talking about how cool the blonde guy's pokemon were or what a good trainer he was, Quinn went straight to Colin and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey best friend."

"That was _rigged_," Colin hissed, whipping his head to face her. "He knew I was just a beginning trainer. He wouldn't leave me alone without a battle."

"Apparently someone either needed an ego boost or a few measly bucks," Quinn said. "That's horrible, though. What kind of jerk gets his ego boost from beating down a new trainer? I mean, he obviously has at least four badges since he has a pokemon from Unova."

"Well I've got my first badge already. I'll catch up to him and when I do, I'm going to beat him as badly as he just did me," Colin declared. "Seriously, what an asshole."

"You beat Emily?" Quinn asked. Grayson had said Colin had a distinct disadvantage.

"Yeah, with Mamie… That's my munchlax," he said, a proud smile creeping onto his face. "She's going to be super tough."

Quinn put her arm around Colin's shoulder. "Do you want to go get ice cream?"

"Well, I was going to start on my way to Eterna…" Colin said, hesitating. "But actually, ice cream sounds awesome."

"Ice cream is always awesome," Quinn said with a smile. "Let's go."

* * *

**Author's Note (5/26/13): **And we are well off into the journey of Quinn Petunia Pointer! Thank you SO much to everyone who has read and reviewed so far- I am so overwhelmed (again, in the best possible way) by the response- I definitely wasn't expecting it. And thanks to everyone who submitted OC's! Again, I was blown away by the sheer volume of submissions I got- 16! And seeing as how I can't fit 16 trainers in here, I unfortunately can't put them all in this story. As of right now, the posting of chapter 2, submissions are CLOSED. I will have answers on which submissions I'm using by next Sunday, when chapter 3 is posted. :)

A huge thank you, per usual, to my friend and beta **Noteleks.** Without being able to rant about story ideas, send double and triple messages trying to figure out characters and teams and getting feedback on each chapter, as well as each character, each outline and the sociological and criminological underpinnings of it all, I doubt I would have the motivation (nor the ability) to keep writing amongst my other million real-life commitments. So thanks, as always. :)

See you next week all! And thanks again for reading! I am happy to hear any feedback, negative or positive. :)

~DAT


	4. We're nothing short of invincible

Dusk had taken the place of the nice sunny June day when Quinn and Colin walked out of the ice cream parlor that evening. While Colin had considerably calmed down, he was still fairly angry following his battle with "that asshole with the heatmor". It was a bit of a walk from the ice cream parlor to the Pokemon Center, which was nice seeing as how it gave Quinn some time to walk around Oreburgh.

Though she, Colin and Kale had occasionally made the trip from Jubilife to Oreburgh after school some days, it still amazed her to look up at the large buildings, still new enough that their glass windows and solar panels glimmered when the sun hit them. She couldn't really remember how Oreburgh had been before the war, as they had lived in Hearthome and rarely left the city, but according to Grayson, it had been quite different- a small city (really, in the loosest sense of the word) where most of the men worked in the coal mine and most of the women either stayed home with children, did craft work that was sold at the market or volunteered with the Pokemon Center.

The mine collapsing during the war against Team Galactic had changed everything- their leader, Roark, abandoned his post as gym leader to begin the arduous task of restoring the mines, a task that was still nowhere near complete, and a business sector emerged. Because they could no longer count on coal as an energy source, they had begun producing the solar panels that had made Sunyshore so renowned, which saved the town from going under. Because the population of Oreburgh still couldn't compete with Hearthome or Sunyshore or even Pastoria these days, there was still some worry in the eyes of the business owners, but the days of Oreburgh barely being a city were long gone.

Quinn and Colin walked by one particularly large tower in the financial district, where Quinn was surprised to see a sign announcing that it was an official Sinnoh Pokemon Gym. Overcome by curiosity, Quinn peeked in the window, but the lights were off, save for one behind an official-looking reception area. While Quinn couldn't make out an arena or a battlefield, she did note an impressive fountain in the center of the room. "This is the gym?"

"Yeah, it's up on the top floor of the building," Colin said. "You didn't know that? We've passed this building before."

"I guess I didn't really care before," Quinn said with a shrug. "Do you like, battle your way through the floors?"

"No, this is a mortgage company," Colin said. "But when Emily was instated by Lucien, she really didn't have a gym- I mean, Roark still lives there, and after what happened, they couldn't just kick him to the curb. So in the meantime, she just turned the top floor into a gym."

"It seems kind of counterproductive to put a gym in a building," Quinn said, her eyes still glued to the window. "I mean, trainers coming in and out all the time, probably being obnoxious…"

"I'm sure it's only temporary," Colin said. The elevator light dinged and the doors began to open. "Look, someone's coming!"

A slender woman in her early thirties sauntered through the lobby, an unlit cigarette between her fingers and a lighter in the other hand. She had taken off her jacket and it was now thrown carelessly into her shoulder bag. Even with the door closed, Quinn could hear her sky-high heels click across the floor. "Are we going to get into trouble for being here?" Quinn whispered to Colin, but before he could answer, the woman stepped outside of the doors. Her burgundy hair blew behind her in the light wind of the evening.

"If you kids are looking to battle the gym, it's closed until tomorrow at noon," she said, lighting the cigarette. She looked at them more closely. "Didn't I battle you earlier?" she asked Colin.

_This _was the gym leader, the infamous Emily? "Y-yeah," Colin stammered. "I was in here earlier."

"Yeah, Colin, right?" she said. "I'm sure I'll see you again tomorrow, right?"

Colin was turning crimson very quickly. "Yes, you will. My friend Quinn here would like to battle you."

"And you'll be back for a rematch, right?" she asked, blowing out a puff of smoke. "I mean, you're tough, kid. You just need a bit more training, but I don't blame you. Pretty rough type disadvantage with the cranidos, but your munchlax is pretty tough. It'll make a hell of a snorlax one day."

Quinn sat there watching the two, disbelief in her eyes. From the sounds of it, Colin had _lost_- even though he had said he won. Was that why he hadn't just headed straight to Eterna, because he needed to get Emily's badge first? And why hadn't he just told her that he lost? It wasn't like she would make fun of him or anything (though she did feel oddly vindicated, after the way he had left her in Sandgem).

"Thanks," Colin said. "I think we better go."

"Oh, yeah, go get rooms quick before they run out," Emily said, gesturing in the general vicinity of the Pokemon Center with her cigarette. Ashes flew all over the ground. "I'm sure I'll see you two tomorrow."

She began to walk off towards the north area of town, cigarette still burning and heels still clicking against the pavement. It was now fully evening and the stars were out above- or at least, Quinn assumed as much, though with the lights of the buildings, you couldn't really see them anymore. She and Colin began to walk towards the Pokemon Center in silence.

After a few awkward moments, Quinn finally opened her mouth to speak, just as Colin started with, "okay, Quinn, I can explain". Quinn closed her mouth and looked at him expectantly. Redness returned to Colin's cheeks again. "Okay, really thought you were going to say something there…" Quinn merely raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue. "Look, Q, you saw how I got my ass handed to me by that guy with the heatmor. I looked like some pathetic newbie. I didn't want to make that even more apparent by telling you I lost against Emily too. I mean, think of what those people would've been whispering if they knew who my dad was. I would've been a total laughingstock before I even got to really begin my journey."

"But why would you lie to me? I don't think you're pathetic," Quinn said, crossing her arms. "And I know exactly who your dad is. He wants you to call him, by the way. But I don't think less of you for losing. I think less of you for lying to me, though."

Colin looked down at his feet. "I just… I mean, I didn't think you would find out. I thought I could get in there before you and I'd have the badge before you went in there to challenge her. But um, I just didn't want you to think I was a loser. I mean, I've been telling you that I'm going to be Champion one day since we were kids, and now we actually go out on our journeys and I can't even beat the Oreburgh gym leader? Kinda ridiculous, right?"

"Colin, they're gym leaders for a reason- because they're tough. I wouldn't have thought you were a loser. Would you have thought I was a loser if I told you I lost?"

"Of course not," he said quickly. "But it's different with you."

"Why?" Quinn asked. "Because you expect me to lose?"

"No," Colin groaned. "Quinn, look, I'm sorry. I've more or less been an ass the last few days and I screwed up the beginning of both of our journeys. I suck. I'm sorry."

"You do suck," Quinn said, nodding. By that point, they had reached the Pokemon Center and Quinn smiled at Colin as she held the door open for him. "You're lucky I love you anyways, because that's what best friends do."

Once Quinn took one step in the Pokemon Center, there was no longer time to think about Colin's self-esteem issues or their mini-fight, as there was hardly room to breathe. Her brown eyes widened as she looked around at the massive throng of trainers, socializing, avoiding socializing, dealing with their pokemon and in many cases, eating. As she pushed through to the desk, a part of her wondered if she'd be seeing either the guy in the bright blue jacket or the asshole with the heatmor, but neither of those curiosities was as important as getting a room. Though Oreburgh was no longer just barely a city, the technology was still pretty outdated in the Pokemon Center, so you still had to check in manually with the nurses on duty.

However, nobody really wanted to move for the awkwardly tall, skinny blonde girl with what looked like a blonde afro, even as she pushed against the sea of far more petite teenage trainers trying to break through. She only began to make headway once Colin began shouldering through the throng, glaring at everyone who dared to shoot him a questioning look and yelling "excuse me" in the least polite tone of voice possible when necessary. Quinn grabbed his arm, getting through the crowd by proximity and smiling apologetically at the especially pissed-off trainers. However rude Colin may have been though, there had been a method to his madness and it worked- within a few moments, they were standing in front of a young woman with long burgundy hair tied up in a pink bow who looked barely older than Quinn herself. "Hello trainers! How can I help you?"

"I need my pokemon healed," Colin said, handing his pokeballs over to the girl. "So does she." Quinn wordlessly handed over her own pokeballs. Neither Marky nor Benjamin was in particularly bad shape, but they had indeed engaged in some battling on the way to Oreburgh, so healing them wasn't the worst idea. "Also, I'm not sure if this is a dumb question or not considering how busy you are, but do you have any more rooms available for the night?"

"Of course," she said, her voice raising as she turned away to hand the pokeballs to another young girl, this one with turquoise pigtails. "We try not to turn any trainers away here in Oreburgh, since it's such a long way to both Eterna and Hearthrome. You'll be jammed in with at least one other person though. Is that okay?"

"It will have to be," Colin said with a forced smile. Quinn had to chuckle. Colin definitely wasn't the most sociable creature. "Are you okay with that, Q?"

"Yeah, that's totally fine!" Quinn said with a smile. "Thank you so much."

"Great!" the nurse chirped. "Let me just find rooms with beds available. Can I see your trainer ID's please?" She began to type something into the computer at the desk. "It takes just a moment," she said with a smile. "Our computer is pretty slow compared to the newer ones they have in bigger cities."

"No worries!" Quinn said, jumping in before Colin could make a comment.

"Are you two here to challenge Emily?" she asked.

"Yeah, she said the gym opens at noon tomorrow, so I'll be going right over there!" Quinn said with a smile. Colin was noticeably quiet regarding the gym leader.

"You have a… magmar? And a shinx?" she said, looking at Quinn's ID (Quinn was particularly pleased with the nurse's lack of a chuckle regarding her photo). "Well, I hope your shinx is pretty well trained up. You'll have a hard time with Em's water-types with a magmar."

_That _was what Emily trained- water-types. Quinn knew she had heard it before, but it wasn't instantly clicking in her head. "Yeah, I've been training hard for them," Quinn said nervously, hoping not to give away that she hadn't remembered that Emily was a water-type trainer.

"Sounds like you're good friends," Colin said casually.

"She's my big sis, actually," the girl said with a bright smile. She handed Quinn back her ID and then passed Colin's back to him. "Okay, Quinn, you're going to be up on the third floor in room 302 and Colin, you'll be on the second floor in room 216. I already scanned both of your ID's, so you're good to go. If you need anything else, my name is Sandra."

"Well thanks so much. I guess this means we head upstairs!" she said brightly to Colin. "Room 216, right?"

"Having that asshole with the heatmor as the person I'm sharing with would just be far too horribly ironic, right?" Colin muttered as they climbed the stairs. "Please tell me it's not even possible. That would just be hideously cruel."

"I'm pretty sure he left already," Quinn said, recalling that he had released a gallade and had it teleport himself somewhere.

"Okay, good," Colin said. "It's too bad they couldn't throw us together, though. You're one of the few people I can actually tolerate."

"And I'm one of the few people who can tolerate you back!" Quinn teased with a smile. "Here we are, C. Room 216."

"Ugh," Colin said as he took the key fob and hit it on the electronic sensor. The light on the sensor turned green and the door unlocked. Colin pushed the door open to reveal a particularly short young redheaded boy sneezing. "Great."

"Have fun!" Quinn said with a bright smile. "I'm off to the third floor. And if I don't see you, good luck against Emily tomorrow." She gave the darkhaired boy a one-armed hug as she began to walk away.

"You too," he called after her. "You're going to win, even though you had no idea what kind of pokemon she even trained!"

Quinn chuckled and shook her head. Colin had known her for far too long in addition to knowing her far too well. She climbed the stairs to the third floor with a smile on her face. Room 302 was right at the top of the stairs. Quinn pressed her own key fob against the electronic sensor and opened the door immediately once it turned green. Upon opening the door, the first thing she saw was knees- the other occupant was lying on the bed, denim-covered knees bent and hitting the very edge of the bed frame, as they were clearly too tall for the small beds. Upon a second glance, Quinn wondered if she was going to hit the same problem.

The curly-haired blonde set her trainer bag on the bed and the seafoam green eyes of the other girl fluttered open. Her long reddish-gold wavy hair cascaded over her shoulders and covered most of her torso as she laid down. She coughed and sat up. "Hi, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," Quinn squeaked.

"You didn't wake me up, I was just resting my eyes," the girl said with a friendly smile. "I just got back from Snowpoint a few hours ago and I think I'm trying to fight off a cold."

"Wow, Snowpoint?" Quinn asked. "Is that where you're from?" If so, she was an awfully long way from home.

"No, I was up in Snowpoint battling the gym leader," she explained.

"Did you win?!" Quinn asked, her eyes widening. Of course, she had friends who had left for journeys while she was in school and they had won badges- Emily's Tidal Badge, the Forest Badge from whatever gym leader was placed in Eterna at the time, some even with Maylene's Cobble Badge. She had never known anybody, though, who had gotten all the way up to Snowpoint to challenge Oliver Purdue and his ghost-types. She figured Colin would be the first person she knew personally that could make that claim.

"Yes, I did," the girl said, blushing furiously. "Vesper, my umbreon, had a pretty easy time. The journey was pretty rough though."

"Arceus, you must be super tough!" Quinn said excitedly. She couldn't believe she was meeting such a trainer, and in Oreburgh nonetheless!

"What's your name?" the girl asked, as if purposefully steering Quinn away from the topic.

"Oh, Arceus, I'm so sorry, how rude of me," Quinn said, blushing a bit herself. "I'm Quinn. I'm just a newbie trainer, here to battle Emily, nothing special."

"Of course that's special. Every badge is special, every trainer is special," the girl insisted, a warm smile on her face. "I'm Margo, by the way."

"Are you on your way to Sunyshore, Margo?" Quinn asked, her eyes sparkling. Sunyshore, the biggest city in Sinnoh, was where the last badge was, though most people that visited there had nothing to do with the gym challenge. Quinn had always wanted to go there, even just to visit, but it would be even cooler to make the trip for the purpose of getting the eighth and final badge of the Sinnoh region.

"Eventually. I have a lot of training to do before I'm ready to take on Norah," she said bashfully.

"I'm sure you could take her on now! I mean, you beat Oliver, right?" Unless this girl was lying like Colin had lied, but Quinn doubted it. This girl had nothing to gain by lying, and besides, she just seemed too nice.

"I train mostly steel-types, so her houndoom would make pretty short work of my team if I'm not prepared, so I need to train up," Margo explained.

"But you have an umbreon?" Quinn asked, confused.

"My best friend and I got two eevee siblings from her father when we were younger," she said, her smile brightening. "He said that when we started our journeys, the fact that our eevee were brothers would always give us a reason to see each other, no matter what. She evolved hers into a glaceon. Mine evolved into an umbreon."

"Wow," Quinn said breathlessly. She had only seen Eevee and its evolutions in the pictures of her textbooks back in school. They were extremely rare, owned almost exclusively by wealthy trainers. Even in Jubilife, which was the most cultured city on the west side of Mount Coronet, they were few and far between, but this girl, this girl that had beat Oliver, had one. Quinn had to admit, she was fascinated.

Margo coughed again. "Ugh, it definitely sounds like it will be awhile before I'll be going back to Sunyshore if this cold sets in," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm going to grab some tissue." She stood up and strode across the room to the desk, which was barely large enough to be functional. She definitely seemed too long for the small beds, as now that she was standing up, Quinn realized that Margo was even taller than she was. The main difference was that while Quinn's height made her awkward and clumsy, Margo seemed willowy, delicate and graceful. Her long, thin legs looked more like a ballerina's than a trainer's. The lack of scars on them showed that she was much more poised than Quinn herself. Quinn could only hope that she would be so fortunate in the coming years.

A Crosstransceiver began to ring, but it wasn't Quinn's tinny standard ringtone. Margo ran across the room and grabbed the device out of her pink messenger bag. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree as she answered. "Hi!" she cried out. "What are you doing?" The person on the other line began to talk and Margo was paying the utmost attention. A bit deflated, Quinn grabbed her sleepwear out of her bag, a pair of grey baggy boys' basketball shorts and a navy t-shirt that was a size too big, and went into the bathroom to go change.

* * *

Margo had left before Quinn had woken up that morning. Quinn was an early riser, so that meant Margo had left well before seven in the morning. Quinn wondered if maybe Margo had gone to Sunyshore after all to battle Norah and her team of super strong pokemon, or if perhaps she had gone to meet up with whoever had called the night before. It didn't look like she was coming back- all her stuff was gone, the bed was neatly made and the key on the pillow.

The intention behind waking up early was to train Benjamin and perhaps even Marky a bit before battling Emily in the afternoon (she had no illusions about going right at noon- Colin was surely going to get there before she was). That was the intention.

Instead, she went down to breakfast, loaded up on toast and ended up lying back in bed because her stomach hurt and as she laid there, she began to think about all of the ways in which she could spectacularly lose to Emily, water-type gym leader of Oreburgh. Sure, Benjamin had the advantage, but he was also still young and didn't have that great of control over his electricity yet. Marky was nearly useless against water, and she didn't want to risk serious injury by even attempting to put him up against Emily (or risk losing, and then Marky hating her even more for it).

At some point, she fell back asleep and when she awoke, it was 12:01 and her stomach no longer hurt because of the toast, though nervous beautiflies had taken the place of the nausea. There was no doubt that Colin was back at that fancy building with Crag and whatever he had named his munchlax battling Emily. Quinn sat and stared at the clock, which rolled to 12:02 under her watchful stare. She was beginning to wish she had just gone at noon and fought with Colin over who got to go first. She just wanted to get this over with. She just wanted to know if Emily was going to demolish her or whether or not she would earn her first badge.

Did she even want to battle Emily? She didn't _have _to go to Emily first. She just had to start out with one of the first four in Oreburgh, Eterna, Veilstone and Pastoria. Looking at the options though, she was pretty certain with just Benjamin and Marky, there was absolutely no clear advantage over any of the four (well, maybe Eterna, but nobody really knew what type the gym leader trained at Eterna at any given time, since the gym leader changed so frequently). Maylene and her lucario were notoriously strong, and Jace Wilson's electric-types were much quicker than either Benjamin or Marky at this point and could probably knock them out without her pokemon ever getting a chance to attack, which would be enormously embarrassing.

So Emily of Oreburgh it was.

Quinn grabbed her pokeballs out of her bag and released Benjamin, who was so excited to see her that he let out a jolt of electricity, which connected with her pillow and turned it to ash (though Quinn was more excited that it didn't burst into flames first). He mewed happily, which made the beautiflies in Quinn's stomach even stronger. "Okay, Benjamin, we are going to go battle a gym leader!" she told him. He trilled in response. "Are we ready?!" she asked, pumping her fist up in the air. Benjamin trilled again, jumping up in excitement that matched his trainer's.

The clock read 12:46.

Quinn looked at Benjamin, who was clearly waiting for her to continue. "I think this is usually where I'd be really inspirational or something, but I've got nothing right now. Let's go!"

* * *

The lights in the large building in Oreburgh's financial district were on now, and the receptionist's desk was now occupied by a slender blonde with high cheekbones and even higher heels talking to a man in a suit that probably cost more than Quinn's house back in Twinleaf. The blonde held a finger up to the man to silence him immediately upon noticing Quinn peering through the window and put up a smile that was supposed to be encouraging Quinn to come in, though it looked more fake than anything. However, it did the job, as Quinn hesitantly opened the door and took her first steps in the lobby.

"Hi, are you here to battle Emily?" the blonde said in an aspartame-sweet voice. "Her last challenger just left, so you can go right on in."

Quinn stared ahead blankly, at the receptionist, at the man in the suit and at the elevator she would take to get to Emily's gym. The beautiflies in her stomach were working overtime and her earlier terror crept back into her brain. She couldn't do this. Not yet, anyways.

And so Quinn turned back around and ran right back out the door.

* * *

**Author's Note (06/17/13): **Hello friends! You're probably used to this one if you are also a reader of SYOF, but I am SO sorry for the delay in updating. This 11-credit summer is no joke (also, _learn from my mistakes_ and don't ever do this to yourself) and I have been drowning in statistics homework and readings for my robotics class. So anyways, I've been swamped and trying to write a little bit every day, and I thought this would be a good stopping point for an update, since one is long overdue. That's why this one is a bit shorter than the last couple. However, chapter 4 is already very much in progress and I am aiming to have it done in time for a Sunday update, but on this schedule, I can't make any promises (especially with an all-day Saturday class this week). I _have_ already made good headway, though, so it is definitely a distinct possibility.

Much appreciation as always for my fabulous, fabulous beta and friend, **Noteleks**. Whenever I have the chance to write, I'm forever bombarding her with ideas, questions and solicitations for her opinions. Pretty much the best beta ever. :)

And so much appreciation to you guys! I appreciate you all so much, and I have really enjoyed getting to talk to many of you over the last couple months as this story has been unfolding. You guys rock, and I am one lucky girl for having readers like you keeping me going. :) I've never really been one of those authors who demands reviews to keep writing (mainly because, as much as I love you guys, I write for myself, not you), but it has been incredible to get the sort of feedback you guys give me, so thanks so much, and I hope you'll continue to not just point out the good, but the bad, so I have the chance to fix my mistakes and allow this story to be the best it can be. :)

Keep a lookout for me this weekend, because you'll more than likely be seeing chapter 4. Thanks as always (and sorry for the long author's note)! :)

~DAT


	5. I don't shine if you don't shine

"I think you're ready," she declared. Sandra, the burgundy-haired nurse currently on duty at the Oreburgh Pokemon Center, handed two pokeballs back to an extremely sunburnt Quinn, who took them back eagerly.

"Really?" Quinn asked excitedly.

"Honey, I'd be surprised if Benji didn't evolve into a luxio mid-battle," Sandra said. "You've trained him well. You definitely stand a fighting chance against Em."

"Benjamin," Quinn corrected automatically. She hated the idea of shortening his classy name and besides, Benji was a children's movie about a dog and Benjamin was most definitely a kitten. "And I don't know… From what Colin said-"

"Forget what Colin said!" Sandra interrupted. "You are going to walk out this door and you are going to whoop some butt!"

Quinn laughed. "You really think it's time?"

"Oh it's time, alright," Sandra said with a nod. "Now go get your badge."

* * *

It only took Quinn seven minutes and forty-two seconds to get to the tall building in the financial district of Oreburgh where Emily's gym was housed. By the time she walked through the glass doors, she was dripping sweat and her unruly ringlets were sticking to her forehead and her neck and she was panting so hard she could barely speak. Not only was it unfairly hot for a June day, but Quinn had run from the Pokemon Center in her excitement. She was beginning to regret that decision.

"Can I help you?" a hesitant auburn-haired girl in a snug black pencil skirt and white button-down shirt asked. She began to leave her position at the reception desk to come to Quinn, her heels clicking as she moved across the tiled floor. "Are you okay?"

"I'm here to battle Emily," Quinn said as confidently as she could (which, since she was wheezing, didn't really sound so confident).

"She's on the eleventh floor," the girl said, gesturing to the elevator. "Do you need like, a water or something?"

"Nope, I've gotta get up there and battle Emily!" Quinn said determinedly.

"Well alright then," the receptionist said, raising her eyebrows. "Good luck to you then."

"I don't need it!" Quinn called behind her as she stepped onto the elevator. "I'm going to whoop some butt!"

* * *

The sign on the door said "out to lunch", which would have been nice for the receptionist to tell her before she got up to the eleventh floor. While Quinn would have been deterred only three days prior, the blonde instead stubbornly sat right in front of the door marked "Emily Teague- budget analyst" and crossed her arms in front of her chest for good measure. The air conditioning was strong and she was starting to cool down, which was nice because it meant that she would be nice and composed for Emily. Five minutes passed, and then ten, and Quinn sat there and forced herself to envision a scenario where she and Benjamin wreaked havoc on Emily and her aquatic pokemon.

When Emily returned from lunch, she was greeted by the sight of a teenage blonde girl sitting with her back against Emily's door with a faraway smile on her face. There were crescents of moisture on the sides of her t-shirt due to heavy amounts of sweat, and her unruly golden curls resembled a starly nest. Emily looked at her quizzically. "Are you here to challenge me?"

Quinn snapped right out of her daydream and looked up at the young woman in a staunchly ironed cobalt dress and heather gray cardigan, her burgundy hair pulled back neatly into a bun. In her hand was a large brown paper bag and an expensive leather purse hung over her shoulder. "Yes! My name is Quinn Pointer and I'm here to challenge you for your badge."

"Very well," Emily said with a shrug as she opened the door, and strode back inside. Her heels began to click against the floor as she moved from the plush carpet of the hallway into the cold gray tile of her office. "Do you want some fajitas? I have some left over."

"No thanks," Quinn said as she walked in behind her. She loved fajitas, as well as leftovers in general, but she was here to do business. "Woah," she said as she glanced around Emily's office. For only being a budget analyst, the young woman had an absolutely giant space, complete with another exquisite fountain.

"This is usually our CFO's office, but he was nice enough to switch me offices temporarily so I could have a larger space to hold battles," Emily explained as she set the leftover fajitas in the fridge. "You look like you're ready to start."

"I am!" Quinn said, a nervous tone creeping its way back into her voice.

"Well, let's get this over with," Emily said with a warm smile. "Do you have any other badges?"

"No, you're my first gym battle," Quinn said.

"Lovely, I'm honored," Emily chuckled. "As one of your first two gym battles, I am only allowed to use two pokemon. Consequently, you will as well. Items are only permitted in extreme emergency cases, by which I mean in situations where there is more at stake than your pokemon fainting and you losing. If your pokemon is seriously injured, you may leave or heal without penalty. The use of items otherwise will disqualify you from winning this match. Do you understand the rules as they have been read to you?"

"Yes," Quinn said automatically and with that, Emily pushed a button on the desk that opened up two sections of tile, under which was a pool of shallow water. However fascinating Quinn would normally find this, Emily's words kept playing over and over again in her mind. _Situations where there is more at stake than losing or your pokemon fainting…_Quinn shuddered to think of something like that happening, though to say it was unlikely was a severe understatement. There were too many rules and regulations on battling in place now for that to happen except in the case of extreme misfortune. Still, Quinn couldn't help thinking of the grim possibilities as she grabbed Benjamin's pokeball and pushed the button to release him. He materialized with an eager smile and a fierce glint in his eyes.

Emily grinned at the sight of him. "If I had a dollar for every shinx that came through my door…" she said thoughtfully. "Yours is pretty big though. He must be almost ready to evolve." Emily pushed the button on her own pokeball, releasing a goldeen that was almost twice the size of Benjamin. The goldeen dove under the water and came back up with a smug look on its face.

"I don't need to ask if you're ready, because I know you are," Quinn said, looking down at Benjamin. Benjamin gave a curt nod and mewed impatiently, almost as if to say _can we start now?_

"Are you ready to battle, Quinn Pointer?" Emily asked. "Because I'm starting."

"Cool!" Quinn said enthusiastically. "Okay, Benjamin, we've been training for this! Use spark, like we practiced!"

The shinx had gotten much better at focusing his electricity and using it for more than accidentally shocking Quinn when trying to cuddle with her. With a determined mew, he let out a burst of electricity… that promptly missed the goldeen who had dove under the water to avoid it.

"Try and get that shinx into the pool, Goldie!" Emily called to the goldeen. "He can't swim! She'll be forced to switch!"

Quinn's eyes widened. "That can't possibly be fair!" she said.

"Nothing about it in the rules, sweetie. Welcome to gym battling," Emily said with a smirk. Though she had been so kind in offering Quinn fajitas and not making fun of her giant blonde afro, apparently in battle, Emily was ruthless.

Not that Quinn had been hoping for pity, or anything.

"Make sure to keep your footing," Quinn told Benjamin. "They're going to try to knock you into the water." She made a mental note to teach the shinx how to swim one day. She didn't think it was a skill he would need. Apparently she was wrong. "Okay, um, let's try to charge up your energy, Benjamin."

Benjamin was a step ahead of her, his tail glowing as he tried to hone in his electricity. "This is your chance to strike, Gol! Jump out of the water and hit it with a horn attack!"

"Uh, dodge!" Quinn yelled, not sure of what else to say. The goldeen was heading straight for Benjamin and Quinn was panicking.

Of course, in Quinn's efforts to get Benjamin to dodge the goldeen, she had caused Benjamin to panic as well and he fell off the platform right into the water. A broad smile crossed Emily's face, as a look of horror spread across Quinn's. "Oh no! Arceus,_shit_, Benjamin, shit shit shit…"

In his panic, Benjamin let out the spark attack that he had been charging up previously. As he sputtered and kicked his small legs to keep his head above water, a powerful torrent of electricity ripped across the pool. Emily's smile was wiped away as she saw flickers of energy hit her goldeen. Quinn looked on, dazed and unsure of what to do, as Emily flew to Quinn's side of the battlefield and grabbed the goldeen out of the water, wincing in pain as she was shocked- electricity was definitely still present in the pool. An intense burn covered her dorsal side, and Quinn's eyes widened. "Emily, Arceus, is your pokemon okay?"

"Yes, get your shinx out of the water," the burgundy-haired young woman said curtly, as she went over to a filing cabinet by her desk and pulled out a spray bottle marked "burn heal".

Quinn had almost forgotten about Benjamin, but impressively enough, he was keeping afloat fine. Once he had gotten the hang of kicking his feet to keep above the water, he was able to stabilize himself and he just looked up at her with wide eyes. Quinn plucked him from the pool, gritting her teeth as she was shocked by the water. She let go of Benjamin, who looked at her with a confused look on her face. "Plan B," she told him as she grabbed his pokeball and recalled him to get him out of the water. She pressed the button a second time to let him back out on the ground. "I'm sorry, Benjamin, I panicked," she said. Her hands were still shaking and her head was still spinning. Arceus, she had never been so terrified before. Gym battles were so much more intense than regular battles.

Quinn set the shinx down on the platform above the pool and went to where Emily stood with her goldeen by the fountain. "Is Goldie okay?" Quinn asked, remembering the name that Emily had called out.

"Yeah, it's not a pretty burn though," Emily said with a frown. "Though really, you get used to it when you train those you are weak to electricity. I'm sure the same thing must happen with grass or ice trainers when they fight fire-types."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Quinn said, though really, she had never thought of it. Of course, she knew the basic type match-ups- they had been ingrained in her brain in school at such a young age, she was sure they would never leave her brain. She had just never realized the reality of weaknesses and strengths. She hadn't realized that she owned pokemon who were capable of such damage until that moment.

"Goldie will be alright, though," Emily said, forcing a smile back to her face. "She just needs to sit out battling for a week or so." The goldeen was now laying in the fountain, a content look in her wide blue eyes as she laid there in the cool water. A healing salve was spread on the burn. "I think we should cover up the pool though. I don't want to risk any more pokemon getting hurt if there's still voltage in the water, since water is a conductor of electricity."

"Sorry," Quinn said, blushing profusely.

"No, don't be sorry. You should be proud of your shinx. That was certainly impressive. My strategy backfired, that's for damn sure," Emily said. She pressed the button and the covering went back on the pool, which was then covered by the tile flooring. "Lucky for me, I have a teammate that doesn't really need water to get around." She grabbed a second pokéball and pressed the button. "Let's go, Shelly!"

Quinn giggled as a pink west Sinnoh shellos materialized. Goldie the goldeen and Shelly the shellos- the nickname creativity in this battle was just astounding. At least Benjamin and Marky had interesting names, even if she hadn't named Marky (and he was named after a former teen heartthrob turned movie star).

"What's so funny?" Emily asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Nothing," Quinn said quickly. "I just like your pokemon's nicknames."

"Funny, that's what your friend said right before Shelly and I made him cry," the burgundy-haired gym leader said with a smirk.

Quinn's eyes widened. "You made Colin cry?" She added this to her mental list of things to make fun of him about when he was being obnoxious.

"Damn near," Emily said with a shrug. "Now come on, let's get this going. Shelly, mud bomb!"

Quinn shrieked. "Arceus, dodge!" She didn't have to tell Benjamin twice, as the shinx mewed in alarm and took off running. "I thought only gastrodon was part ground," she said to Emily, who had started to laugh at her reaction.

"I'm sorry, I've never had somebody scream in here before," Emily said between giggles. "Arceus, my co-workers must hate me… Shellos is pure water, but learns ground moves upon leveling up in preparation for evolution."

"Oh." The blonde visibly deflated at the statement. Both Benjamin and Marky were weak against ground-type moves. "Well there's still a chance, then, Benjamin. Use your spark attack! And try not to inflict severe burns, if you can," she added hastily.

"Keep mud bombing until you hit that kitten!" Emily called. "Come on, Shelly, you see shinx literally almost every day!"

There was the real disadvantage- not typing, or experience, but the fact that Emily had seen so many shinx come and go- some successful, some not so much- in her time as gym leader that she knew exactly how to deal with them. She had strategies in place to conquer her weaknesses- not just Shelly's ground moves, but some of her other tricks, like getting Goldie to knock pokemon in the pool because she knew they couldn't swim well and the trainer would be forced to switch out. Quinn could hardly believe her shinx was the first to attack out of fear when knocked in.

The spurt of electricity that Benjamin had released hit the ground nearby the shellos, who had managed to avoid the attack despite not being very fast. It was spewing mud all over the battlefield at an alarming rate (Quinn couldn't help but think that it was probably a good thing that Emily's floor was tiled, not carpeted). Benjamin was going to soon have issues finding somewhere to run and escape without being forced to run in the mud. "Uh, keep letting off sparks until you hit the shellos! Keep running!" Quinn ordered, not really sure what else to tell Benjamin. If he stopped to charge his electricity up, he'd be a sitting psyduck for Shelly and her mud bombs, and there was no guarantee the super-charged spark would hit its target anyways.

Benjamin definitely looked concerned as he ran around the outside of the battlefield, where the shellos would have the most trouble reaching him. He definitely had a speed advantage over the sea slug pokemon, but that speed would do him no good if he couldn't attack. Quinn also realized that he couldn't run forever and would eventually become fatigued and she would need to strategize and figure out what to do when Benjamin couldn't run anymore.

The sound of an attack hitting and a pokemon hitting the floor brought Quinn out of her mental strategy session and she looked up and was startled to find Benjamin no longer running and stuck in a large puddle of mud. He growled unhappily and shot off a volt of electricity in the direction of the shellos. It hit, as it was supposed to, but its power was significantly weakened by the mud that covered the battlefield.

"Finish it off with a water pulse, Shelly!" Emily called. Benjamin bowed his head as the attack hit him dead on, defeated. Quinn ran to his side and wrapped him in a hug, not caring about the wet mud that was now getting all over her clothes.

"You did so great," Quinn whispered, tears clouding her vision. "Thank you, thank you so much."

"Is the shinx your only pokemon?" Emily asked. "Are you unable to battle?"

Quinn thought about Marky, who would not only have a difficult time with the water moves of the shellos, but the ground. Marky was at an extreme disadvantage. Quinn was tempted to say that she was unable to battle, that Emily had won, but as she looked down at Benjamin, she realized that she owed the shinx more than that. He had battled hard for her to try and win her the Tidal Badge. She at least owed it to him to not give up.

…But didn't she owe Marky more than sending him into a battle that she knew he probably would not win? Sure, he had a few non-fire moves that he could use, and he was pretty strong, probably at a higher level than this shellos…

What was Quinn talking about? Marky totally had a shot. Strong pokemon won battles. He was strong. She was obviously just going to have to be creative. After all, Colin had come in and won without a single electric-type, and so had Kale. Good trainers made type disadvantages work, and Quinn did want to be a good trainer. So despite her initial hesitance, she smiled and said, "No. I've got one more."

There was surprise visible on Emily's face as the spitfire pokemon materialized, which then turned into a smile. Quinn could tell the burgundy-haired young woman definitely thought the battle was already won. She would show her, though. Oh, she would show her.

* * *

Or she would've shown her, if the magmar had even _tried _listening to Quinn even a little bit. When Quinn commanded him to use smokescreen to try and throw off the accuracy of their foe, he scoffed at her. When she had begged him to use smog, a poison-type attack that she had seen him use before, he had rolled his eyes. And when she had tried to get him to use faint attack, a dark-type move that was their best bet in winning since it turned the pokemon using it temporarily invisible so they could sneak up on their opponent from behind, he outright laughed at her.

The smile on Emily's face had faded once she caught wind of Quinn's absolute hopelessness in winning the battle, but it had to end at some point, even if it was almost unfair to attack the novice trainer. Emily was a gym leader and it was her job to call for Shelly to use mud-slap on the offending magmar. It was then, as the shellos hit the magmar with some of the wet mud that was still on the battlefield, that Marky came to life and spewed a mighty stream of flames at the shellos. It didn't really do much, but it did show Emily and her shellos that Quinn was back in business, even if she wasn't the one in charge anymore.

"No, use faint attack!" Quinn yelled, turning red from the energy she was exerting to try and get Marky's attention. Spitting embers at the shellos did them no good, after all, since the shellos was a water-type. The magmar shot her a foul look and let out a cloud of gas that wafted over to the shellos, who looked absolutely nauseous once the smell had hit his nostrils. The sea slug began to turn green and Marky had a smirk on his face as he vanished, finally getting around to the faint attack that Quinn had commanded him to use.

"Shelly, use water pulse!" Emily yelled. "Just start spraying water all over! You'll hit him eventually!"

Before the shellos could obtain good coverage of the area surrounding her and spray the battlefield with water, Marky slammed into her from behind, causing her to stop spewing water at him. The light returned to Quinn's eyes as she realized that the battle was still winnable. The shellos was potentially poisoned from Marky's smog attack, and the magmar had her pinned.

"Use water pulse while you're at such a close range!" Emily called to her shellos. Panic was starting to show. The gym leader was beginning to realize there was a chance she would lose.

"Smog!" Quinn called desperately, hoping there was some chance, even the slightest one, that Marky would choose to listen to her.

There was none. Marky let out a fierce stream of embers aimed directly at the shellos. Despite the type disadvantage, the close range and intensity of the attack did their job and the shellos fainted before having a chance to execute a close-range water attack. Quinn's mouth dropped open. "Oh shit," she muttered. "You did it!" She ran to the magmar and tried to hug him, but he pulled away and scowled at her. Quinn's heart dropped into her stomach. "Marky, you did great," she said softly.

"Mar," he said angrily. He knew just as well as she did the great disadvantage that he had against Emily's shellos and he was _not _happy with her for putting him in that situation. Despite wanting to argue with him and tell him that she had no choice with Benjamin out for the count, a part of her, the part that had originally hesitated when Emily had asked if she was unable to battle, knew that he was right. It had been unfair and even potentially dangerous to put Marky in such a position. If that close-range water attack had hit him before he could attack and knock out Shelly, Marky could've been really hurt.

"Color me impressed," Emily said as she handed Quinn a small piece of light blue medal. "Congratulations, Quinn Pointer. This is the Tidal Badge."

Quinn smiled and thanked Emily and then returned Marky with a heavy heart. She didn't feel worthy of being a trainer with a badge. Not at all.

* * *

A certain burgundy-haired young nurse with her hair tied back in a bow was waiting for Quinn when the exhausted young blonde walked through the door. It was almost disconcerting to see her in a pair of jeans and a blue spaghetti strap tank top instead of the usual nurse scrubs. "How did it go?" she asked loudly. "I couldn't possibly go home without hearing from you first!"

Quinn grabbed her badge case from the pocket of her shorts and triumphantly held it out, the Tidal Badge displayed prominently. Sandra gasped. "You won! I knew you would! Congratulations! How does it feel to be a trainer with a badge?"

"Not much different than being a trainer without a badge," Quinn admitted. "I just really need to get my pokemon healed up."

"Oh, of course, hon! Come on, I'll go back there and run them through the machine for you," Sandra offered. Quinn handed the pokèballs to her friend and took a seat down on one of the couches. She put her face in her hands and closed her eyes. While things could definitely be worse_, _she was most definitely upset that Marky was so angry, though she was beginning to wonder if he would _ever _be pleased with her. Still, hopefully Eterna Gym was one that was better suited to Marky's talents and he would shine and then forgive her. That's how all good trainer stories worked out, right? Quinn made a mental note to ask Sandra what the gym in Eterna trained when she came back.

"Woah, what happened to you?"

Quinn looked up with a cold stare, ready to punch some junior trainer in the face, but she was surprised to find a familiar face. Indeed, Brogan looked a lot more suited to being out of the lab, with his long-ish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck and tanned, weathered skin glistening with a few traces of sweat. Though his opening statement had put her on the defensive, his brown eyes looked so friendly that it was just hard to stay mad. "Hi to you too!" she said. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm on my way to Eterna," he explained. "Prof Rowan didn't realize there was another new gym leader in Eterna so he wanted me to go introduce myself on behalf of the lab and check out the leader's new pokemon."

"Not even Professor Rowan knows what he trains?" Quinn asked. Well, so much for asking to try to gain some sort of heads up. If the professor didn't know, she doubted Sandra would. "Why doesn't he just call?"

"Pretty sure he actually just wanted me out of the office for a couple days," Brogan said with a chuckle. "He said the outdoor air would be good for me after I cooped myself up in the lab while he was on vacation."

"Oh," Quinn said. "Well, I'm on my way to Eterna to get my next badge."

"You wanna go with?" Brogan asked. "Hop up to Cycling Road, it's maybe a day's trip."

"…I don't have a bike," Quinn admitted. This was for good reason, of course- Quinn hated them. Never mind that bicycling got you around faster than just walking did. Quinn was much happier with her feet on the ground and not tangled in the spokes, which was what usually happened.

"We can take the long way around too," Brogan offered. "I'm in no hurry, and besides, it's probably better you take the longer way. Get more experience, meet people, that kind of shit."

"Well, if that's okay with you…" Quinn said unsurely. After all, he was Professor Rowan's assistant, and she certainly didn't want to get him in trouble after all the help he had given her that first day back in Sandgem.

"It's all good!" Brogan said, waving his hand in the air dismissively. "We just step back over to Jubilife, which is no probs, then hike up this short little pass to Floaroma and stay there tonight, and then tomorrow, we take on the Eterna Forest! It'll take three, maybe four, days tops."

"Here you go, Quinn!" Sandra said, handing over Benjamin's and Marky's pokèballs. She looked over curiously at Brogan. "Who is this? Is this your boyfriend?"

"No!" Quinn said hurriedly. "This is my, uh, friend." Could Brogan be called a friend? Well, he could now. "His name's Brogan. He's Professor Rowan's assistant. Brogan, this is Sandra."

"I always figured you liked 'em older, Quinny," Sandra said with a wink.

"Arceus…" Quinn muttered with a sigh.

Sandra giggled. "You're so funny, Quinn." Unexpectedly, she wrapped the blonde girl in a hug. "Good luck out there, okay? You're going to kick ass."

"Thanks," Quinn said, touched. "Thanks for everything, Sandra."

"You bet, girly!" the burgundy-haired young woman said with a bright grin. "Now I'm out of here. Nice to meet you," she said to Brogan. "And hey," she said, turning once again to Quinn. "Don't let that fire of yours go out, okay?"

Her words stunned Quinn. "Um, okay," the blonde said, puzzled. "I won't."

"Bye you two," Sandra said, a playful grin once again returning to her face. She waved as she walked away and headed through the doors.

"Well that was weird," Brogan said, his gaze following Sandra out the door.

"Yeah…" Quinn said, still confused. What had Sandra meant by that? _Don't let that fire of yours go out._

"Ready to go?" Brogan asked.

Quinn checked the clock on her Crosstransceiver. It was 4:24. "Will we have enough time to get to Floaroma and get a room?"

"Absolutely," Brogan said dismissively. "This will be an easy journey."

* * *

"An easy journey," Quinn grumbled, her arm slung over Brogan's shoulders as the older boy tried to keep her balanced as they passed the sign. _Welcome to Floaroma! You're home! _Because of course, such a nondescript little town had such a corny sign. Quinn sighed. "You know, I could probably walk by myself, Brogan."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You took a pretty nasty fall going up that pass."

"Well they don't call it Ravaged Pass because it's an easy breezy trail," Quinn muttered to herself. As they approached the "town square" (if you could call it that), Quinn couldn't help but notice that every single light in town was out- including that of the Pokemon Center. "You're kidding me. What time is it?"

Brogan glanced at the watch on his wrist. "It's 9:17."

"What kind of Pokemon Center is closed before 10?" Quinn fumed.

"Small-town ones," Brogan said matter-of-factly. "It's okay, Quinn. We both have camping supplies and we happen to be in the best place possible in Sinnoh to do some camping!"

"Really?" she said with doubt in her voice, looking around the small town.

"You just can't see it because it's dark out, but Floaroma is the most beautiful town in Sinnoh," Brogan challenged. "And just five minutes out of town to the east is the most amazing field of flowers. We can camp right in the field!"

Quinn blinked, more than slightly surprised at Brogan's enthusiasm. "Um, sure," she said.

"Just come on and see for yourself," Brogan said, grabbing Quinn's arms and placing it over his broad shoulders so that he could help the injured younger girl the small distance to the field of flowers.

Quinn's attitude changed completely once they were in the field surrounded by the beautiful flora, moonlight on their delicate petals. A few pokemon who made the outskirts of Floaroma their home, mainly shellos and shinx, looked at the human intruders quizzically, but most ignored them completely.

"This is amazing," the blonde said as Brogan began to set up both of their tents. "This was a great idea, Brogan."

"Thanks," he said, looking quite pleased with himself. "This is just a great little spot to be one with nature, ya know? It's so peaceful. I'm so glad we're staying here instead of some run-of-the-mill Pokemon Center. It's an _experience_."

"That it is," Quinn said brightly. "And I want to experience everything!"

* * *

Quinn knew she would be taking that enthused declaration of wanting to experience everything back soon. She wasn't counting on _this _soon.

The blonde was hoping that she would wake to the sun rising over the Floaroma meadow, but apparently she had underestimated just how tired she was. The sun was shining brightly, pokemon were out and playing in the meadow, starly chirped overhead and there was a pungent odor in the air. Brogan sat outside his tent, waving to her as he saw her stirring, a joint between his fingers.

"Are you smoking _weed?_" Quinn asked, still groggy.

She could barely hear his response over the buzzing.

What in the _hell _was that noise? Quinn found her answer looking up at the top of the tent. An annoyed looking combee was flying around. "Cool!" Quinn said to herself. "I can try to catch it and maybe it's female and could evolve into a vespiquen!" One of the Elite Four members in the past had trained a vespiquen, she remembered. That would certainly make a cool edition to her team.

She reached for her bag to get Benjamin to come out and battle the combee so she could catch it. Certainly Marky was still mad and would end up burning her tent down in an attempt to get the combee. There was still a chance of one of Benjamin's sparks doing the same sort of damage, but at least the risk was smaller with Benjamin.

Brogan was still ranting, though Quinn was only catching a few emphasized words. "It's _not _bad," he was saying. He was, of course, paying more attention to the joint than he was to the fact that Quinn wasn't paying even the slightest bit of attention to his speech.

The combee didn't like her sudden movements and swooped down and landed on her shoulder. Quinn didn't even have a chance to call Benjamin out to battle before she felt a stinging in her upper arm that was almost like a shot, but ten times more powerful. Quinn yelped loudly, effectively getting Brogan to end his spiel. The combee flew right out of the tent and into the distance. He looked at the mouth of her tent in amazement.

"You have the worst luck, don't you?" he asked.

Quinn couldn't answer; her tongue was beginning to swell.

"Arceus," Brogan muttered. "Are you allergic to combee stings?"

All the blonde could do was shrug.

* * *

**Author's Note (6/26/13): **You know how excited I was about getting this chapter out? I am at work, doing homework and the second I got the email alert that the edited chapter was in my DocX, I gave up immediately on the homework and went right to making my edits. Although you know, if you consider the fact that I wrote most of this chapter at work (plus am updating at work), I can very technically be considered a paid author, right?

...Okay, no. Probably not.

Well, at any rate, the fact that I'm able to have any writing time in this crazy summer is exciting enough for me as it is. Not even going to lie, I absolutely love writing this story more than any other story I've ever written. It's just so much FUN! :)

Thanks for sticking with me with my crazy updating schedule all. It is so appreciated. I really appreciate the amazing feedback I've gotten, the conversations I've had with you and just being able to share this story that I love so much with you. As per usual, so much thanks to my amazing beta and friend, **Noteleks, **and a giant thanks to you for reading!

Chapter 5... I will try to get it out as soon as possible. More than likely next week some time, since I actually get some time off (!) and at that point, midterms and essays will be over (for now, at least) and plus, one of my classes has already been cancelled for next week. I'll just keep plugging away at it, like I usually do.

See ya next time!

~DAT


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